


Where We Fell

by HeavenlyDisaster



Series: Mad for Each Other [2]
Category: DC Cinematic Universe, DCU, Suicide Squad (2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-11-09 06:14:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeavenlyDisaster/pseuds/HeavenlyDisaster
Summary: Told from Joker's perspective, the history of him and Harleen/Harley.Based on the Ayerverse Harley and Joker(While the continuity is (mostly?) on par with You Know I'd Do Anything For You, the events take place solely from Joker's point of view and consist of the time leading up to, but not including the events that happen in Suicide Squad save for flashbacks.





	1. First Visit

“Alright, Psycho, time for some more mandatory therapy.”  One of the guards stated.  Joker looked up from where he was reclined against the far wall of his cell.  Every wall was made of eighteen inch thick, bulletproof glass so that they could keep an eye on him at all times.  As if that would prevent his escape.  Joker’s hands were folded over his stomach and he had been working through his escape plan.

Being tossed in Arkham was pretty fun as far as utilizing his knack for getting people to do his bidding.  He liked to think of it as a high stakes escape the room game.  With annoying setbacks like court mandated therapy sessions with blathering idiots who thought they were the solution to his madness.  Nothing was going to ‘cure’ his bloodlust or his desire to create chaos wherever he went.  Although tangling with Batman was as close to catharsis as he was likely to get.

Joker leisurely rose to his feet.  Turning around, he stuck his hands through the hole in the glass and waited patiently as the guards secured thick shackles around his wrists and hands.  He let out a forlorn sigh.  He had hoped that after he killed the last psychologist, he would be free of their nagging and questioning for a while.  _Maybe I didn’t kill him well enough.  I should’ve done more than break his neck.  I’ll make sure there is no shortage of blood with the next one._

There were twelve guards assigned to take him from his cell to one of the therapy rooms.  Two held his arms while three more attached shackles to his ankles and attaching those shackles to his wrist shackles by a thick chain.  When the guards had him sufficiently restrained, they lead him down the corridor to a new therapy room.

Joker was bored already.  The guards sat him down in a cold, metal chair and secured his shackles to the bolts on the table and the floor.  Joker rolled his eyes and watched as all but two guards left the room.  Joker rolled his head to the side and took in the four cameras in the corners of the room.  They were video only.  Whoever they had convinced to take him on as a patient was more than likely going to bring in a tape recorder.  Joker’s mind jumped into plotting.

He was afforded nearly ten minutes of silence to strategize before the heavy metal door squealed open.  Joker was staring at the bolts on the table when they walked in.  He didn’t bother looking up.  They sent in a woman.  He could tell from the click of her heels and the tawdry smell of her perfume.  She stood by the door and he could feel her eyes on him.  He knew she wanted him to look at her and he wasn’t about to give her what she wanted.

“You both can go, now.”  She whispered to the guards.  Joker’s ears prickled as he detected a sense a familiarity in her voice.  He had most definitely heard it before.

“All due respect, Ma’am, but this psycho killed the last therapist he was assigned.  You’d be a lot safer if we stayed in the room, Miss.”  Mark Cavanagh argued.  Joker didn’t like people, but there was a special place in Hell he was saving for Mark.

“How about we compromise and you two can wait in the hall.  If you hear screaming, feel free to come to my rescue.”  Joker listened with increasing interest.  “And it’s Doctor.  Not ma’am.  Not miss.  I didn’t attend medical school to be belittled by some chauvinist muscle man.”  Joker smiled at the table.  This woman had fire.  He listened as the guards’ exited the room and the door shut behind them.

The doctor cleared her throat and scraped her foot back and forth against the floor.  Joker frowned.  He thought she had fire and here she was too afraid to approach him.  She took a tentative step forward and cleared her throat again.  She wanted him to look at her and Joker couldn’t deny that he wanted to look at her, too.  He wanted to see this fire filled mouse.  Joker debated quietly.

He had been determined not to give this person what she wanted, but his own curiosity was nagging at him.  She blew out a deep breath and Joker couldn’t help smiling at her impatience.  Her irritation that she wasn’t getting her way.  She was in for a long hour if she thought she could snap her fingers and make him give in to her.

“Mister…Joker?”  Joker kept his eyes on the bolt holding his hands on the table.  “Do you mind….” _No.  I won’t look at you._   He thought smugly.  She took a deep breath.  “My name is Dr. Harleen Quinzel.  May I sit down?”  She asked.  Joker held back his surprise.  She was asking _him_ permission to sit down in her own therapy room?  Joker felt rage and annoyance bubble up.  _Trying to get on my_ good _side by playing at being respectful.  Joke’s on you, Doc.  I don’t_ have _a good side._

She was standing quietly and Joker realized she was waiting for an answer.  Joker dipped his head once in affirmation.  Immediately, she clicked over to the table and sat down in the metal chair across from Joker.

“Thank you.”  She breathed and Joker was struck again by her perfume surprised to find that the smell wasn’t quite as unpleasant as he had initially thought.  She set his dosier on the table and flipped open to his most recent therapy reports.  “Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?”  She asked.  Her words were respectful, but her tone seemed excited and eager.  Joker stuck his tongue in his cheek and considered it.  He nodded again.  _You can_ ask _.  I won’t answer._

Joker let his eyes wander over the metal table top to where her delicate hands rested.  She wriggled in her seat excitedly and Joker wondered if she was celebrating some victory she hadn’t won.  Her finger trailed the first page of Dr. Evans’ report.  She was quiet and Joker wondered when she would start with her questioning.  He was becoming annoyed.  He cleared his throat and her hands stilled.

“Yes?”  Joker wanted to bang his head on the table.  She waited.

“What questions?” He muttered.  Something told him she was smiling.  _Damn it_.  He’d let her play him.

“I’m worried they might offend you.”  She admitted.  Joker frowned.  What exactly were these questions she wanted to ask?  He sighed.

“Just ask.  I don’t promise to answer, but ask anyway.”  She smiled again and Joker warred against his desire to look up.  She leaned across the table towards him to his bafflement.  _Is she suicidal?_

“Why did you kill Dr. Evans?” She whispered.  Joker leaned back in his seat and she got the message that she should do the same.  _Wasn’t that in the report?  Why does she want to know that?_

“He kept pestering me.”  Joker confessed.  “Got angry when I declined to answer his many questions.”  The doctor was sitting quietly, listening to him earnestly.  “He thought I was incapable of violence in my restraints.”  Joker finally allowed himself to look up at her.  He was trying to scare her, but she met his cold eyes evenly.  “He was mistaken.”

Now that he’d looked at her, he let himself take her in.  She was scrawny and seemed to swim in the lab coat that was too big for her.  Black rimmed glasses were settled on her face hiding stellar blue eyes.  Her blonde hair was pulled back in a loose bun letting stray strands fall into her face.  Joker placed her immediately.  She had been in the foyer when he had been brought in talking to Dr. Evans.  He wished he had made her stand so he could get another look at those long, sleek legs she showed off with her short skirts and dresses.

“Why do you ask?”  Joker found himself asking.  She smiled broadly and leaned forward again.  Joker frowned and looked down his nose at her.

“It’s a secret.”  She told him, waving her hand to urge him closer.  Joker nodded his head back to one of the cameras.

“There’s no audio on the cameras.”  He informed her.  Her eyes darted up to the camera and back down to him.

“It’s not the cameras I’m worried about.”  She whispered before pointing behind her to the heavy door.  Joker frowned again rolling his eyes before leaning towards her.  “I had a bet going with him that he couldn’t break you.  You helped me win.”  She winked at him.  “Thank you.”  Joker sat back and regarded her with newfound interest.  He mulled over her confession for a full minute while she sat quietly smiling at him.

“What did you win?”  He finally hedged.  Harley hummed with glee.

“He had to put in his will that I would get all of his vehicles.”  She was practically dancing in her seat.  “I am now the proud owner of a 1967 Pontiac GTO convertible, a 1973 Corvette Stingray, a 1969 Camaro, and, my personal favorite, 1946 Harley Davidson Knucklehead.”  She ticked them off on her fingers as she went.  “He was a collector.”  She explained before a sour look overtook her face.

“What?”  She frowned and shook her head, her eyes fell to her hands.  Joker was nonplussed.  _He_ was the one that got to refuse to answer.  “Tell me.”  He grated.  She looked up at him beneath her lashes.  There was a shy smile on her flawless face.  Her pale painted lips doing the impossible and distracting him from his thoughts.

“It’s a secret.”  Joker growled and rolled his neck.  He let out a breath and fixed her with his best stare.

“I can keep a secret, _doctor_.”  He told her earnestly.  Her smile broadened and Joker found himself shifting in his seat.  She put her elbows on the table and rested her head on her hands.

“So can I.”  She replied.  She arched her brows and stuck out her bottom lip.  “But really good secrets can only be kept if only one person knows them.”  Joker frowned.

“Do you think I’m not trustworthy, _doctor_?”  He keened.  She laughed then and Joker felt something twist in his gut.  He wanted her to laugh again.

“Of course I don’t, silly!” She answered with a grin.  “You’re a hardened criminal.  No honor among thieves and all, ya know?”  Joker leaned back.  He picked up on the Brooklyn accent that slipped onto her words.  She noticed it, too and an enchanting blush spread over her cheeks.  _There’s something I can use…_.

“Maybe you’re bluffing.”  He turned his face away and looked at the wall.  Immediately, the only thing Joker wanted was to look at her again.  _After I kill her, I’ll keep her face as a souvenir._   She looked confused.

“Bluffing about what?”  She asked innocently.  Joker frowned at the wall, focusing on a deep crack that ran from the ceiling to the floor.

“Your so-called secret.”  Harley huffed.

“I am _not_.”  She insisted.  Joker shrugged still refusing to look at her.  Harley slammed her hands on the table and stood.  Her chair toppled backward and clattered on the floor.  Joker looked back at her in surprise.  She was leaning on the table, an intriguing fury in her eyes.  “I don’t bluff.”  She snapped.  A sincere smile slid onto Joker’s face to his chagrin.

The door swung open and the guards reentered the room, weapons drawn.  Harley looked over her shoulder at them and blushed again.  She cleared her throat, closed his dosier and tossed one last look at Joker before making her way past the guards.

“We’re finished for today, boys.  Please escort Mr. Joker back to his cell.”  The guards surrounded him and unchained him from the table.  Joker continued smiling.  Just when he thought prison was getting boring.

“What are you smiling for, Psycho?”  Cavanagh demanded.  _Idiot._ Joker thought.  _You aren’t half as clever as my little doctor._  

They hurled Joker back into his cell without unshackling him and shut the door.  Joker fell forward and smacked his face on the cold cement floor.  He cursed inwardly and chuckled externally.  He rolled over onto his back and continued laughing at the ceiling of his cell.  Blood trickled into his mouth making him laugh harder.  And through it all, the same image played his head.

The stray strands of blonde hair falling over her face.  Her blue eyes looking up at him over the dark rims of her glasses and beneath the equally dark flutter of her long lashes.  The private smile spreading across her face to reveal that bewitching chortle.

He turned his head to the side and found the clock hanging above the exit.  4:23.  _Only twenty-two hours and thirty-seven minutes until our next tete-a-tete._   Joker turned his eyes back to the ceiling.  _I’m about to make you regret ever going to medical school, doc._   He frowned.  She had told him her name and now he couldn’t seem to remember it.

_It was something ridiculous.  Something interesting.  Heather?  Haley?  Harley?  Ah.  Harley.  Like the bike she loves._   _Oh, Harley, soon I will make you tell me_ all _of your secrets.  And when you’ve spilled your guts, I’ll rip them from your belly and show them to you._


	2. Something is Starting

_What is she doing_?  Joker was watching her with interest.  He had given up on trying to avoid looking at her.  She was too fascinating.  He still hadn’t said a word to her and she had done the same.  She hadn’t even asked to sit down.  She was pacing the edge of the room, her fingertips brushing the walls.  Joker looked his leisure.  Taking in the beautifully toned legs she had kept hidden for the entirety of their meeting yesterday.  She walked behind him and he bristled.  The chains made it difficult for him to keep his eyes on her.

She moved to the other side of him quickly enough.  He wondered if she noticed how much it bothered him for her to be back there.  She didn’t look at him and seemed to be going out of her way to be ignoring him.  Though the silence was starting to irk him he wouldn’t be the one to break it.

_She was a stupid puppy yesterday. Hankering for information like begging for a treat.  Maybe this is another trick.  Maybe she thinks this will be the tactic that gets me to open up about my_ feelings _._  

She finally stopped in front of him, the cold metal table the only thing separating them.  He was still staring at her legs, but gestured to the chair for her to sit down.  She didn’t move.  His eyes traveled up from her legs.  She had a hand resting on her face and a calculating look on her face.  Joker frowned.  So she was trying to psychoanalyze him after all.

“What?”  He snapped, unable to keep the silence any longer.  She jumped and seemed to shake herself out of her daze.

“Sorry.”  She murmured.  She grabbed the back of the chair.  “May I sit?”  Joker narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but nodded his head.  “Thank you.”  She sat down and flipped open the dossier on the table before picking up a purple pen and twirling it in her fingers.  She looked down at the notes before looking back up at him silently.

Joker leaned away and pulled back his upper lip to reveal his metal teeth.  Her eyes darted down and stared at the part in his ghastly white lips.  He closed his mouth and leaned forward to catch her eye.

“You keep staring at me like that, doc, and I’ll start thinking you want something from me.”  The rose color blossomed on her cheeks and she dropped her eyes back to her notes.

“Sorry.” She cleared her throat and flipped a page in the thick file with trembling fingers.  _Huh.  Maybe she_ does _want me.  But how much?_

“No worries, doc.”  He broke into a whisper, “Truth be told, I’ve been wanting the same from you.”  Her eyes flitted to his and back down with a firm shake of her head.  Joker got all the answers he needed in that split second.  She desired him.  Enough to be useful?  He couldn’t say for certain, but a few weeks of these therapy sessions and he’d make her sell her soul to the devil himself to get in his good graces.

“You’re mistaken, Mr. Joker.  I was only considering how to properly pose a series of questions meant to understand your thoughts and feelings so I could better assess the best treatments for you.”  She kept her eyes glued to her notes and Joker smiled.

“Ask me anything you’d like, but I don’t think you’ll get the answers you’re looking for.”  Harley pressed her glasses back up her nose.

“Where were you born?”  Joker scoffed with a shrug.

“Who’s to say?”  Harley tapped her pen on the table.

“You don’t know?”  Joker shook his head.  “What about your parents?”  This wasn’t as much fun as he was hoping.  She only delayed posing the normal questions.  The boring questions.

“Mom was an addict and dad was a drunk, blah blah blah.”  Harley frowned and wrote something in her notes.  She stopped and leaned towards him on her forearms.

“What do you think about Batman?”  Joker tilted his head to the side and looked at her.  “You’ve met him.  He’s the reason you’re in here, right?”  Joker nodded slowly.  “You said you had no interest in killin’ ‘im even though he busted your face all ta Hell.”  She was excited.  Her accent trickling into her words amusing him.

“I think Batman is just as wicked as the rest of us.”  Harley nodded, wide-eyed.  “He refuses to admit it even to himself, but we all know it.  I can’t kill him because the thought that one day I will push him far enough to forgo his so called ‘moral code’ and he will have to face what he’s been oblivious to for so long.”  He gestured to his own face.  “I got pretty damn close this past sparring session.”  Harley looked oddly sympathetic.

“You _want_ him to kill you?”  Joker thought she might cry.

“Kill me, kill another bad guy that gets a bit too high maintenance.  I want him to see that even though he thinks because he doesn’t kill, he is somehow better than us low-life crooks, he isn’t.”  Harley nodded slightly and bit the knuckle on her finger.  She was staring at his face again.

“Does it hurt?”  She asked.

“What?”  She pointed to his face where the cut from Batman’s batarang was still healing.  His eyes were still blackened and his nose had been rebroken last night when he fell.  She had a sadness in her eyes that made Joker uncomfortable.

“What is pain?”  Harley sad nothing, choosing instead to return to her notes.  Joker watched her scribble for a few minutes in silence.  She occasionally tucked one of the many stray strands of blonde hair back away from her face until she finally looked back up at him.

“You blew up a bridge in West Gotham leading to an amusement park on half price day.”  Joker nodded, waiting for the question.  “One hundred and thirty six people lost their lives.”  Joker nodded again with a wicked smile breaking across his pallid face.  “You also put a bomb on a train bound for downtown Gotham at the same time.”  _Still not seeing the question, doc_.  “You could’ve killed more than a thousand people.  Especially if you hadn’t filled Batman in on your plan.”  She paused and chewed on the end of her pen.  “Why would you tell him….”  She muttered to herself, but Joker wanted to answer.

“I forced him to put a value on human life.  Were one hundred and thirty-six lives worth the same as one thousand?”  Joker grinned.  “Batman thought not.”  Harley pulled the pen from her mouth slowly and Joker watched it tug her low lip down slightly.  An uncomfortable pressure had arisen in his groin and he let out a low growl.  Harley met his eyes in surprise.  Her pupils were dilated.  Her breath was caught in her throat.

“What did you expect him to do?”  Harley breathed.  She was desperate to distract them from the obvious desire charging the air between them.  Joker shrugged.

“Exactly what he did.”  Harley nodded.

“What would you have done?”  Joker cocked his head to the side.  “If you and Batman had been in reversed roles, that is.  How would you have handled it?”  Joker had never been crossed with that question.  Nobody had ever wondered what _he_ would be like as the vigilante hero.  Nobody.  Joker found himself without an answer and that realization ignited a cold fury in him.

“Are you defending Batman’s actions?” He growled.  “Choosing one psychopath over the other?”

“I’m not-”

“I’m no hero, _doctor_.  They could have all fried for all I care.  The more casualties, the better.”  Joker yanked at the heavy chains restraining him to the table and floor as he lunged towards her.  She didn’t move.  Didn’t flinch.  Her cool and relaxed demeanor made him angrier.

“Why are you angry right now, Mr. Joker?”  She asked him coolly.  Joker snarled and dropped heavily back into his seat.  After a few long seconds ticked by, Harley scribbled something else down in her book.  “Are you refusing to answer out of anger?  Or is it because you don’t know yourself?”  Joker stared at the crack in the wall again.  He willed it to break apart and swallow the annoying blonde woman whole.  She went back to writing quietly for a few long moments and Joker was reminded of her silence when she first walked in.   “I’m sorry.”  She whispered.  Joker kept his face impassive as the words caused a wave of confusing emotion to rush over him.

“Why?”  He demanded.  She said nothing and Joker glanced over at her.  She was staring at her notes.  Joker wasn’t sure if she hadn’t heard him or if she was ignoring him.  Either reason irritated him.

“I don’t want to upset you and clearly I have.”  Joker sighed and rolled his neck.

“Most people get on my nerves, doc.”  Harley nodded.

“Yes.”  Joker waited for her to speak again.  It was several minutes before she did.  “I don’t want to be one of those people.”

“Too late for that, Doctor.”  He said it I large part to mess with her.  He knew that there was no truth to it.  She somehow vexed him in a way that was unlike anyone else.  He refused to think too long on the reason for that.

She didn’t disappoint.  Her face was that of a kicked puppy.  She looked down and chewed on her bottom lip and looked up at the long crack that fell down the wall.  Joker smiled.

“Do you like working here, doctor?”  Harley looked up and blushed.  _Strange_.

“Yes.”  She whispered.  Joker tipped his head up to look at the ceiling.  _She spends all day in a windowless cement room.  Air so thick and hot a camel would be uncomfortable.  Why would she choose to be here_?

“Why?”  She stared at him quietly and Joker found his anger rising again.  Something beeped and Harley jumped and found her phone in her pocket.  It was four o’clock.

“Sorry, Mr. Joker.  I have another appointment.”  She explained before hurrying to the door.

“See you tomorrow, Doctor.”  Joker taunted.  Her cheeks flushed one final time before she slipped out the door and the guards took her place.

* * *

 

It was nearly one in the morning when a guard came to stand in front of Joker’s cell.  He used his key to unlock the small hole through which they cuff Joker for his appointments.  He dropped a manilla folder rolled up and held with a rubber band through the hole before turning the key again and closing the hole.

Joker casually rolled off the bed and picked up the folder.  He pulled the rubber band off and slipped it around his wrist before unraveling the folder and examining the papers inside.  The first several pages were copied from Evans’ last will and testament.  Joker lounged against the far wall of his cell and read carefully.

He quickly found the paragraph bequeathing his car collection to his colleague, Doctor Harleen Quinzel.  _Harleen Quinzel.  Harley Quinn.  Harlequin.  I’ll be damned._   He continued reading stowing his newfound information away for later use.  _What would have made her upset?  Everything seems to be on the up and…_ he flipped the page and found a listing for all the classic cars that had been in Evans’ possession.  The list held far more than three classic cars and a motorcycle.  There were a dozen more vehicles listed under his name with dates beside them showing that he had transferred ownership preemptively to his son and brother.

_He double crossed her.  Worked in a loophole so she wouldn’t win even if he lost.  That is the sort of underhanded deviousness I didn’t attribute to him.  And the smug pompousness that had me snapping his neck in the first place._

One mystery solved, Joker tossed the will aside and looked at the other papers inside the folder.  All of it was background research into his current psychiatrist.  She was from the Bronx and went to college on a gymnastics scholarship.  _Gymnastics…_.  Her grades in high school were mediocre, but she graduated with top marks in college.  The Joker tried not to dwell too much on that nugget of information.

She has a sister and a mother that she rarely sees and a father that left when she was six.  She moved to Gotham when she graduated college and took an internship here at Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.  _She’s been here for two years.  Odd that this is our first interaction.  I wonder what her motives are.  A full scholarship to college and she studies Criminal Psychology of all things.  She doesn’t even pursue her gymnastics career.  Apparently she was good enough to be an Olympic contender.  She must be very flexible.  The positions I could get her into…._   Joker shook himself to try to rid himself of the urges, but his cock had already formed a large tent in the baggy Arkham prisoner uniform.

He found the picture of her paper clipped to her internship application and slipped his hand beneath the waistband of his pants.  He gripped himself and leaned his head back against the glass.  He imagined taking her against the metal table so hard they tore the bolts from the floor.  Shoving her skirt up over her hips and driving into her soft flesh.  Biting her lip like she was always doing.  He groaned as he spilled himself into his hand and ruined his pants.  Joker walked over to the small sink built into one of the glass walls and rinsed his hands off.

_Damn woman is making me lose my self-control._   He rolled himself back onto the ground and shut his eyes.  With a sigh, he tried to shut the thoughts out of his mind and find a few restless hours of sleep.


	3. Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley runs late to their session.

The same guard returned at quarter to five and slipped a clean pair of pants through the hole.  He waited as Joker changed and tossed his used pants back through along with the files.  He had committed them all to memory and he didn’t like the guards (the ones that weren’t on his payroll) to have any idea of what he was up to.  Their shock and surprise was one of the few greatest pleasures of his escapes.

“Make sure the doc has a vase of fresh flowers waiting in her office before she gets in today, first page has my specs.”  The guard said nothing in response and gave no indication that he had even heard Joker’s command, but Joker knew it would be done anyway.  The guard started to close the hole to walk away.  “Wait.”  The guard paused, his key card hovering above the access panel.  “Give me a pen and a piece of paper.”  The guard reached into his pocket and withdrew a notepad and pen and passed them to Joker.  He snatched them out of the guard’s hand and scrawled a quick note onto the first page before passing it back to the guard.  “See that that note is with the flowers.”  The guard knew better than to read what he was given.  Even out of sight of the Joker, he kept his eyes on the tasks at hand and did as he was told.

When Dr. Harleen Quinzel walked into her office at nine o’clock that morning, she would be greeted by a large bouquet of the specifically selected flowers and Joker’s handwritten note.  Joker imagined the surprised look on her face as she was met with a fresh display of flowers.  She would gently pull one from the bunch and give it a sniff before returning it to the others.  Then she would find his note.  She would be surprised and intrigued at his tenacity and resourcefulness.  The thought of her discovering his gift kept him gratified until three forty-five when the horde of guards appeared to take him to his session.

Joker licked his lips in anticipation as he stared at the door.  He was eager to see her reaction for himself.  He waited impatiently for the giant metal door to swing open and his flexible little acrobat to be standing there.  There was no clock in the therapy room, but Joker knew she was late.  It took them eleven minutes to transport him from his cell to the therapy room.  He had been sitting in his chair for a minimum of ten minutes.  That put the time at four oh six.  Their sessions were scheduled for four on the dot.  Joker’s excitedness drained from him replaced with a dour mood.

_Where is she_?  He adjusted himself in his seat and focused on the door.  He listened hard for the familiar clack of her heels in the echoey halls.  For the sound of her voice as she asked the guards to stand aside and let her in.  But he was met with silence.  Silence that enraged him.  _How dare she be so late to our session.  If_ I _must be here, so must she._

Seconds ticked by into minutes and Joker began turning the idea of her demise over in his head.  Inexplicably, he couldn’t get past the need to quench his lust with her before ending her.  Logic and sound reasoning told him to slit her throat and wash his hands of her.  Still, every scenario he imagined for her end began with him seducing her into some of the wildest positions he could imagine before slaughtering her.  Carnal pleasures before the carnage.

Joker’s ears prickled as the quick slap of stilettos hit the concrete floors outside echoing in the corridor.  He shifted in his seat and adjusted himself until he was halfway facing away from the door.  The chains bolted to the table and floor made too much movement impossible, but it was imperative that he remained ‘harmless’ in the eyes of his captors.  At least for the moment.

“You were supposed to be here at three.”  Cavanagh announced.  Joker found his snark annoying.  Especially since the sentiment was so close to his own.

“Yeah, I _know_.  Just open the damn door, Mark.”  He heard her snap.

“We take him back in thirty-five whether you’re finished or not.”  Cavanagh declared.

“You take him when I _say_ you can take him.  I was held up discussing matters with Leland.  If you have any problems, go see her.”  _What matters, Harley?_   “You gonna open the door or what?”  There was a beat of silence before the door opened and she stepped inside.  Her heart was still pounding from the jaunt down the hallway and her usually messy hair was a bird’s nest atop her head.  She blew out a shaky breath as she waited for the door to close behind her.

She stood awkwardly by the door for a few seconds more as though anticipating blow back from Joker as well as the guards and presumably Doctor Joan Leland.  She took a deep breath and quickly moved forward to set her file on the table while Joker busied himself with the crack in the wall.  She pulled the chair back and started to sit before pausing and casting a furtive glance toward him.  She licked her lips as she made a decision.  Joker clicked his tongue in his mouth before rolling his head to look at her.  She pulled her upper lip between her teeth as he met her eyes.

“May I sit?”  She whispered.  Joker inclined his head and she sat the rest of the way in her cold, metal chair.  Joker watched her hands flip through her notes and noted that her nails were in desperate need of a proper manicure.  Her hands were dry and the skin around her nails was pulled back in some places giving them a gruesome and bloody aesthetic.  She looked like she could’ve dug her way out of her own grave.  She looked up at him again and noted his displeasure.  “I’m-” She began.  She looked away trying to think of the best way to phrase her apology.  Joker waited.  Newfound patience blanketed him now that he knew she hadn’t been late of her own accord.  “I was called into an unscheduled meeting with Dr. Leland, the head of psychiatric care here, as I’m sure you know.”  She paused.  “Anyway, I tried to make it as quick as possible, but it dragged on.”  She leaned forward and looked into his pale eyes with a pleading look.  “I’m sorry I was late.”  Joker stared at her for a few long seconds before shrugging indifferently.  _Twenty-seven doctors who came in here cock-sure and demanding only to be killed or dismembered or begging to be relieved of duty.  Not one in twenty-seven had_ ever _apologized to me for_ anything.  _And here I sit with this messy little minx who has apologized repeatedly over the course of three sessions.  I’m beginning to think this doctor genuinely_ wants _to be in my good graces._

She cleared her throat.  “And…well….” She blushed and Joker felt a smile twitch at his cheeks.  She pushed her hair back and cleared her throat yet again.

“Yes, _doctor_?”  He goaded.  She flushed brighter.

“I just…” She looked up at him.  “Thank you for the flowers.”  She whispered to him Joker beamed with pride.  “I like the gardenias the most.”  She confided.  She began to relax into this topic.  “I’m not all too sure if you are familiar with the language of flowers or if it was by happenstance that you chose those three flowers.”

“I am.”  She seemed mildly surprised at his admission.

“Oh?”  Joker smiled at her.

“Oleander can mean caution although their petals look so inviting.  Geranium can mean stupidity or folly and they grow in clusters as bad decisions often come.  And _your_ favorite, the gardenia, means secret love.  An affair.  Despite the whiteness of their petals being a symbol of purity.”  Harley gave a small smile and nodded before leaning forward again and whispering.

“The gardenias were my favorite of the bouquet, but my absolute favorite flowers are white daisies.”  Joker stuck his tongue in his cheek as he contemplated her boldness.

_White daisies, huh?  She’s speaking my language._

“Can I ask a question, doc?” She sat back, the moment vaporizing in the hot, stale air.  She nodded.

“Of course.”  Joker pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“Promise to answer.”  Harley chewed her bottom lip.

“I promise to do my best to answer it.”  _Damn her.  She’s knows I’ll ask regardless._

“Why don’t you ever visit your mother or little sister?”  _She wasn’t expecting that one._   Her face fell into a look of horror.  Her already pale skin became ghastly white and her dark rimmed glasses slipped down her face.  Joker smiled innocently at her.  _Payback for being so fuckin’ late and making me wait in this godforsaken hot box for twenty-five minutes._   “Doctor Quinzel?”  Harley sat mute.  “C’mon, doc, you get a gymnastics scholarship and run off to college to _screw_ your way into a PhD without so much as a backward glance.  Why?  What did your mother and sister do that was so terrible?”  She slid her chair back wordlessly and stood in front of the table.  Joker slid his eyes up her body languidly starting at her exposed thighs.

Her arms were crossed over her chest and her eyes were cold.  _Interesting_.  He frowned.

“Are you angry?” He asked, innocently.  She rolled her eyes.  Joker snarled.  _Seems like her respectfulness is gone._   Somehow it didn’t annoy him half as much as it should have.  He found this was just one more intriguing quality of hers.

“What gave it away?”  She wasn’t really asking, but Joker decided to answer anyway.

“Body language.  And your eyes.”  Joker leaned forward. “Shame, really.”  Joker taunted.  She took the bait.

“What’s a shame?”  Joker smiled.

“I really liked your eyes.  They were nice.  Not like everybody else’s.”  Joker was surprised at how true it was.

“My eyes are still here.”  Joker shook his head.

“No.”  She squinted behind her glasses.  “The eyes of yours that I like were soft and playful.  Now, they’re as cold as everyone else’s.”  She chewed her bottom lip and Joker fantasized doing the same.

“You did research on me.”  Harley stated.  Joker knit his hairless brows together.

“Most women would be flattered by such a gesture.”  Harley uncrossed her arms and held them out with her palms up.

“Most women aren’t receiving these ‘ _gestures_ ’ from bona fide psychopaths.”  Joker frowned and shook his head again.

“You didn’t seem to mind when I gave you those flowers.  Besides, I told you to be careful when getting involved with a guy like me.”  He chided.

“The flowers were sweet.  The background check is creepy.  And I don’t want my little sister brought into all my shit ya ever consider that?”  She shouted the final few words before slapping her hand over her mouth and shooting a glance back towards the door.  Joker grinned as he heard her accent slip in.  Joker shrugged.

“So you don’t care if your mother is brought into ‘all your shit’ then?”  He continued.  Harley’s face was contorted in barely concealed rage.  Joker found it utterly amusing.

“My mother can eat ass.  She’s an alcoholic drug addicted child abuser.”  Joker frowned.

“You left your little sister with an alcoholic drug addicted child abuser without so much as a backward glance?”  Harley’s cracked and bloodied fingers curled into tight fists at her sides.

“My sis don’t live wit’ her no more.”  She became aware of her thick accent and cleared her throat before starting again.  “She lives in an apartment in Brooklyn finishing up high school so she can get out of there like I did.  I pay for her apartment with the condition that she graduates high school and goes on to college.”  Joker nodded in understanding.

“Why not move her to Gotham?”  Harley rolled her eyes again.

“And put her within arm’s reach of the crazies like you and Batman?  Not a chance.”  A chime chirped on her phone and Joker recognized it as the tone that signaled her departure yesterday.  She turned for the door.

“Don’t leave angry with me, doctor.  No good relationship can survive if you go to bed upset with one another.”  Harley looked back at him, a strange look in her eye.

“I’m not angry with you, Mr. Joker.”  She assured him, but something told him it was a lie.  Before he could get in another word, she knocked on the heavy metal door that opened immediately.  She was gone in the blink of an eye and he was escorted back to his cell.

* * *

 

“Get up, Psycho.”  Cavanagh ordered.  Joker blinked himself awake and looked at him.  He looked over at the clock.  It was barely six in the morning.  _Poor Mark must be working a double shift.  Hope his wife doesn’t get bored easily._

“Marky Mark, to what do I owe this pleasure?”  Cavanagh looked suspiciously giddy.  The other guards readied themselves to transport him and Joker reluctantly rose to his feet.  He looked around the room.  It was early winter so it was still dark outside.  Joker pushed his lime green hair out of his face and scratched his jaw as a yawn overtook him.  He trudged to the door and stood eye to eye with Cavanagh, waiting for an answer.

He didn’t fool Joker.  When locked in Joker’s cold gaze, he crumbled just the same as any lowly plebe that he hired to do his bidding.  He watched Cavanagh’s Adam’s apple bob as he forced himself to swallow.  The other guards pretended not to notice his predicament.  He had gotten himself into this after all.  Cavanagh cleared his throat and adjust the rifle in his hands.

“Doctor’s orders.”  He wondered if she wanted more answers.  To figure out just how extensive his background check had been.  Or, if she was getting as hot and bothered in their sessions as he seemed to be and wanted to put out the fire, but he doubted she would send Cavanagh for that.  Out of curiosity more than anything else, Joker allowed himself to be shackled and led down the hallway until he started to recognize the hallways.  Anger boiled in his chest.  _So she wants to play_.  He thought as he was dragged into a medical theatre.

He was strapped down onto the hard bed in the center of the room and injected with a strong muscle relaxer.  Gel was applied to his temples and a ball gag was shoved between his teeth to prevent him from biting his tongue off.  _Oh, doctor, you are going to regret this.  I’ll make sure of it_.  The doctor above him picked up the rods and checked the readings on the machine.  Joker stared into the man’s eyes, daring him to do it and he did.

The electricity hit Joker like a freight train.  The room spun until the people and objects were little more than blurs of color.  He gnawed at his gag and a deep chuckle vibrated from his chest.  Seconds ticked by like hours before it stopped and he fell into blackness.

He woke up hours later back in his cell.  His mind was blank as he struggled to bring back the memories he thought of his doctor and planned his revenge.  She made a mistake and it would cost her.


	4. Atonement

Four o’clock came and went and Joker lay on his bed near catatonic as he recovered from his shock treatment.  He stared emptily at the ceiling planning his revenge.  He wanted to make sure she felt exactly what he did.  Maybe _she_ needed some electroshock therapy of her own.  _There’s an idea.  Of course I had planned to escape with minimal fanfare.  The real show starts after I get out.  One hundred and thirty-six fatalities wasn’t nearly the chaos inducing attack I was hoping for.  Although, if I rework the escape a bit.  Make it a bit larger scale, have them bring in a few more of the guys…yeah.  That would work._

“…This is unbelievable!  Unacceptable!  I _demand_ to see my patient!”  Joker’s thoughts were interrupted by the shrill voice of Doctor Harleen Quinzel screeching her outrage.  _What do_ you _have to be upset about, Doc?  You aren’t lying in bed with your brains all turned to mush.  Yet._

She shoved past the guards and circled the Joker’s glass prison slowly.  She stopped beside him and knelt down so she was balanced on her haunches.  Joker ignored her.  She was chewing on her upper lip again as she pressed her hand against the glass.  She said nothing.  Joker could sense she was trying to work out the right words, but it was pointless.  Nothing she said to him at this point would change her fate.

After seconds turned to minutes and the minutes began to add up, she slowly rose.  Her hand slid up the glass.  She stared down at him, but he still wouldn’t cast a glance her way.  He heard a faint sigh through the glass as she resigned herself to his ire.

“I’m sorry.”  She whispered.  It was barely audible and Joker might have convinced himself that he had merely misheard or imagined it had she not apologized so flagrantly many times before.  She walked back around his cell and Joker finally allowed himself a glance at her retreating form.

Her long, lean legs sashayed in such a way that the smooth curve of her ass was visible.  Her hair was piled in a messy bun atop her head and she was holding his file in her arms.  She ducked back through the door meekly with a hesitant nod to the guards.

The next morning, a new vase of flowers were on her desk.  Bird’s foot trefoil, aconite, and red dahlias.  All telling her one thing: she was going to regret her actions. 

* * *

 

The weekend came and went.  Joker became a model patient.  Every meeting he would chatter on and on about different childhood traumas, none of which were remotely true.  He suspected that somehow she knew this, but she scribbled an endless stream of words into her quickly filling notebook.

It was the third week after his treatment that he noticed something peculiar.  He could tell the days of the week by the outfit she was wearing.  Mondays were a red button up shirt with tight, black slacks and her usual black pumps.  Tuesdays consisted of a pastel pink, silk blouse and a tight grey pencil skirt.  Wednesdays included a tight, purple top that showed off her cleavage (a personal favorite of Joker’s as it echoed his own style) and a short black skirt that swayed when she walked.  Thursdays had a dark blue blouse and tight, black pencil skirt.  Fridays had a green, silk blouse with the grey pencil skirt from Tuesday.

He refused to ask about it, but it did ignite his curiosity.   _I thought psychiatrists pulled mad bank or something.  Does she not have money to buy clothes because of her sister or does she just lack a fashion sense._ Or _does she think nobody notices that she has exactly five outfits?_   His curiosity was mollified that Friday.

Harleen walked into the appointment with an unusual nervousness about her.  She had become used to the ritual of their appointments.  Comfortable listening to his fables.  Relaxed and unguarded around him and undeniably more readily flirtatious.  Today she was shifty.  Her eyes kept glancing up to the cameras and she gnawed at her bottom lip.  After about ten minutes, she stood up abruptly making Joker trail off in the midst of his story.

“Mr. Joker….” She started.  Joker tilted his head to look at her.  He didn’t like not being in on the secret.  She took a few steps away from the table and turned to face him again.  She took a deep, ragged breath and started over.  “The EST....” Joker growled and she stopped, the blood drained from her face.  She swallowed though her mouth was dry.  “Do you want to kill me?”  She whispered.  Joker leaned back in his chair and regarded her carefully.

“Yes.”  He finally said.  She blew her breath out between her lips and she nodded more to herself than to him.  He watched her as she slowly circled the table and reached into her pocket.  Joker’s body went rigid as he waited for whatever it was she was planning.  She knelt to the ground and he felt the shackles fall from his ankles.  Surprise was a lead ball in his gut.  She stood and used the key to unlock the shackles from his hands and wrists before taking a half step back.

There was a full three seconds of silence as he comprehended what had just happened before he launched himself at her.  He slammed her against the far wall and he heard her head give a satisfying whack against it as his hands found their way around her slender neck.  He snarled at her.  His face was less than an inch from hers and he stared into her eyes expecting fear and shock only to find a cool resolve.  _No.  She…she_ likes _this._ He put more pressure on her neck and her lips parted.  Her tongue darted out to lick her lips.  She didn’t scream.  It was making him angry, but it was also arousing as all hell.

He pressed his body against hers, his growing erection pressing firmly against her belly.  A soft moan fell from her lips and she rotated her hips against him.  His thumbs pressed against her jaw and tilted her head up to him.  _I wonder what she tastes like.  All that taunting.  Nibbling on her lips for weeks on end.  Teasing me._   He slanted his mouth over hers and she reciprocated eagerly.  His tongue dove between her lips and danced with hers.  She pulled back slightly and sucked his bottom lip between hers making him groan.  His hands moved to her breasts and she moaned a bit louder before jerking her head back and looking at the door.

“What?” He growled.  She looked back up at the cameras and Joker followed her eye line.  The red lights on the cameras were off.  _Why isn’t security breaking down the door?  Why didn’t they do it the second they lost video?_ “What did you do?”  Harleen swallowed.

“I used a little device to play footage of old sessions so security doesn’t barge in.”  She confessed.  Joker grunted in approval.

“You may be too clever for my own good, ya know that, doc?”  Harleen beamed at his praise.  He rolled off to slide back away from her and returned to his seat.  She stood against the wall watching him.  Unsure of what had transpired in his head that led him away from their intimate embrace.  “I don’t think I’ll kill you today, Doctor Quinzel.”  He declared.  Harleen’s hand lifted up and her fingertips brushed her lips, still swollen from their kiss.  She cleared her throat and brushed a few stray hairs from her face.  “Please.”  He said, gesturing to her seat.  She gave a slight nod and did as he asked.

“Wearing a coordinated outfit for each day of the week,” he mused, “you are something else, doc.”  He watched a blush rise on her cheeks.  _Amazing that someone as sexually explicit as her would be so prone to blushing._   She flipped her notebook open and tapped her pen against the pages as she focused on something other than his face.  “What do you write in that thing?”  He demanded.  Harley looked up at him and made to close it again before he yanked it from her and began flipping through it.

“No!  Please?”  She begged, holding out her hands.  Joker focused on the pages.  On almost all of them, his name was scrawled in different fonts with hearts.  There were rudimentary doodles of the two of them kissing and… _well, well doctor…._   He looked over at her.  Her head was buried in her hands and she was curled into herself in an attempt to become as small as possible.

“There’s a chance you may have a thing for me, Doctor Quinzel.”  Harleen giggled, her hands strangled the sound irritating Joker.  He reached over and pulled her hands down and away from her face.  “Don’t cover your laugh.”  He told her seriously.  Harleen nodded with equal seriousness.  He returned to the pages of her notebook.  “Now about these doodles….”

“Oh, _please_.  Please disregard-” Joker tsked and shook a finger at her, his eyes still on the pages.  She fell silent.  Joker scratched his chin and stuck his tongue in his cheek as he mulled them over.

“I’m not sure all of these positions are completely doable….”  _She might be freakier than me_.  “The acrobatics alone seem….”

“Well, you know I put myself through college on a gymnastics scholarship.”  Joker met her eyes.  A new hunger taking over.

“I do recall.”  He drawled.  Harley put her hands on the table and slowly rose from her seat.  Joker watched her.  His eyes never left hers.  She rounded the table to his side and propped herself up against it.  She moved her leg over his lap so that she was seated on the table with him between her legs.  Joker scooted himself back in his chair and set the notebook beside her on the table.

His hands went to her smooth, toned legs.  He could feel the muscle just beneath the soft, soft skin.  He slid his hands up to her knees.  She bit her bottom lip and restrained herself from diving at him.  His hands crawled further up and his fingers slid under her thighs.  He gave her a devious smile before gripping her tight and yanking her onto his lap.  She gave a small squeak as she adjusted herself on him. And felt his erection against her mons.  Her hands slipped around his neck and she toyed with his soft hair at the nape of his neck.

Joker ground up against her and slipped his hands into her messy hair.  He gripped it in his fist and pulled.  She let out a gasp of pleasure followed by a slow smile.  He pressed his mouth against hers again.  Biting her lip and drawing blood.  She didn’t mind.  She rocked herself on his lap as he broke their kiss to nuzzle down her neck.  He was working the buttons of her shirt open when Harleen’s cellphone beeped signaling the end of their session and the incoming guards.

She leapt from his lap and began straightening her shirt and skirt.  She looked over at him.

“You’re shackles!”  She yelped.  Joker grimaced at the thought of putting them on again, but noted that the guards finding him unshackled with the good doctor would most likely put an abrupt end to their sessions.  And he was just beginning to really enjoy them.

He clicked his ankle shackles into place and his left hand.  He looked up at Harleen and motioned for her to put his final shackle back on.  As she reached down for the cuff, he gripped the back of her neck and pulled her down for a final kiss.

“One for the road.”  He whispered as she clicked the shackles into place.  She was breathing heavily.  An observation that amused the Joker.  Harleen straightened and rubbed the backof her neck where his hand had been before collecting her files and her notebook.  The guards entered as she was picking up her pen.

“Running a little late, Doctor Quinzel.”  Cavanagh declared.  Harley glared at him before elbowing past him and into the hallway.  Joker watched her go.  A new hunger rising in him. 

_It is going to be a long weekend._


	5. Office Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doctor Leland visits Joker to discuss his sessions.

Joker was disgruntled.  With himself.  He spent the seventy-one hours before his next appointment with Doctor Quinzel berating himself.  He had been focused on revenge and punishment for her actions and yet when he was given the perfect opportunity to end her…. 

_It wasn’t the right time.  I want to make sure she suffers._   Joker told himself.  The truth was nagging at the back of his mind, but he wouldn’t hear it.  Not that it mattered anyway.  One way or another, the good doctor could consider herself as good as dead.

Someone walked into the room and Joker turned his head to examine the newcomer.  Doctor Joan Leland.  She was in her late forties to early fifties with salt and pepper hair pulled tightly back in a nice neat bun at the crown of her head.  Her dark eyes were set deep in her head behind thin, gold frames and balanced on the bridge of a long, thin nose.  Her lips were thin and surrounded by wrinkles caused from pursing her lips in disapproval so often.  She was in a dark grey pant suit and clunky black dress shoes.  She wasn’t unattractive altogether, but definitely not Joker’s cup of tea.

She was frowning down at him in consternation.  Joker broke into a wide grin displaying his flashy, metal teeth.  He wished he had his red lipstick.  His pallid lips and sallow eyes didn’t give the right element of fear to the expression.  Even so, Leland seemed repulsed by the smile.  Something that only made his smile broader.

“Doctor Joan Leland,” he sang, drawing out each syllable, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”  He swung his legs off the bed and stood up.  He did a slow lap around his small cell before coming to a stop directly in front of her.

“Dr. Quinzel has intimated that she is making progress with you in your therapy.”  Joker pressed his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip.  _Did she, now?  What are you scheming, doctor?_   He didn’t reply and after a few seconds, Leland continued.  “She requested your sessions be moved to a more open therapy room.  Dr. Quinzel believes that windows and ventilation may help accelerate your progress.”

“Dr. Quinzel is _really_ something else.”  Joker confessed.  “I don’t know what it is about her that makes me….”  He paused as the heavy door swung forward and Harleen entered.  _Working on a Saturday, doc?  When do you sleep?_   Harleen blinked against the sudden brightness of Joker’s cell block.  Her eyes adjusted and she found Doctor Leland before she noticed him.  He watched the blood drain from her face.  A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he took in her disheveled appearance.  Her hair was down in a wavy, blonde cascade and she had forgone her glasses.  Her lab coat was buttoned all the way up concealing the clothes underneath making Joker wonder if she hadn’t changed since yesterday.

“Dr. Leland, I was told you were down here.  You requested I come in and meet with you?”  Leland let out a heavy breath before turning to lead Harleen out of the cell block presumably to her office.  As she left, Joker noticed her shoes.  Bright red pumps that boosted her up about five inches and clung to her ankles with a series of thin straps. 

Once they had gone, Joker checked the clock.  It was nearly eight o’clock on a Saturday night.  Joker rolled his neck and stretched locking his index and pinky fingers together as he pulled his arms up behind his back.  Less than five minutes later, a guard was at his door.

“Play the video and take me to her office.”  He grated through clenched teeth.  The guard flicked a signal toward one of the security cameras and the red lights went out before the guard opened Joker’s cell and let him walk free.

Joker followed the guard up a back staircase and up three flights of stairs into a dark hallway with plush, blue carpeting.  Joker appreciated the feeling against his bare feet and curled his toes into it while he waited for the guard to open Harley’s office door.

“Make sure no one gets suspicious.”  He ordered before shutting himself inside Harleen’s office.

It wasn’t much.  The grey walls were barren and only one, small window cast any light into the space.  Joker looked outside.  The moon was hanging low in the sky and storm clouds were rolling in.  He turned to her desk.  The nicest thing she had in the office was the plush chair behind her desk.  Joker sank into it and began opening the drawers in her desk.  Nothing personal was anywhere in her office save for a framed photograph of her and a much younger girl with dark blonde hair.  Harleen was in a leotard hugging her sister who was holding a large first place trophy.  Beside the photograph were two vases of long dead flowers.  Joker frowned.  _Why didn’t she throw them out?_

Joker stood and moved to the couch that was slightly less comfortable than the desk chair.  He was about to go back to the desk when the door opened.  He stood perfectly still as the doctor herself entered her office.  She didn’t notice him as she walked straight to her desk and began unbuttoning her lab coat.  Joker noted the tension in her body.  _Maybe her meeting didn’t go well_.  Joker’s thoughts fled his mind when she pulled off her lab coat to reveal the devilishly red dress beneath. 

Dress may have been too strong a word for the skimpy fabric that clung to her body.  Large sections of the material were cut out to show off her smooth skin beneath.  The hem didn’t reach mid-thigh before stopping which was more than could be said for the neckline that plunged down between her breasts daring them to peek out.  It was a dress that would drive sane men mad and mad men wild.  A dress that had Joker’s mouth watering.

She pressed two fingers between her eyes and massaged gently.  She felt her way back to her chair with her eyes closed and dumped herself unceremoniously into it.  Still unaware that she wasn’t alone, Harleen set to work removing her heels.

“Harleen, I’m concerned about your interactions with the Joker.”  She said in a mocking tone.  “I’m going to call you in to work on your night off to discuss the moral dilemma I’m faced with because no other therapist wants to work with him, but I don’t want to let _you_ continue to work with him.”  Joker was delighted at her grumbling.  Not only was it informative, but it was highly entertaining.  “Well, Joan, I have been going out of my way to prove to you that I am not personally involved with my patient.  As a matter of fact, you had the delectable privilege of interrupting the first date I’ve been on in months to talk about my personal life.”  Now barefoot, she moved across the office to a cabinet by the door with an espresso machine on top.  She opened the door on the right and withdrew a small teacup.  “Not that I was especially invested in the date in the first place.”  She continued as she pressed a few buttons to brew her espresso.  “And, yes, the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about Mr. J throwing me up against that wall and kissing me while Ryan Yates tried to mansplain the differences in psychoses to me all throughout dinner _is_ something I should probably get my head checked for.”  The machine beeped and she took her cup back to her desk.  “Doesn’t mean you’re not a bitch.”  She took a sip and looked out her window.

“I hear talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity.”  Joker disclosed from his position in the shadows.  Harley screamed and jumped up from her seat spilling her espresso on herself in the process.  She screamed again as the burning liquid hit her skin.  Joker laughed, leisurely walking over to her desk and trailing his fingers over the top as he rounded it to stand in front of her.

“Mr. J!”  She blushed.  “I mean, Mr. Joker, h-how did you get in here?”  Joker shrugged, deciding to leave the mystery alive for her.  She yanked open the top left drawer of her desk and pulled out a stack of napkins.  Joker pulled them from her hands and pushed her back into her chair.  “Mr. Joker-”

“Tell me about this date, Harls.”  He dropped to his knees and gently dabbed the espresso from her thighs.  He was annoyed that his first instinct was for jealousy upon learning that she had been on a date with someone.  Angry that someone, _anyone_ , else had seen her in that dress.

“Oh, uh, well….” Joker looked up and met her eyes.  She grimaced.  “I’m worried I might be losing my mind.”  Joker’s hairless brows pulled together.

“What does that have to do with your date?”  He demanded.  Harleen put her hand over her eyes and gave her head a slight shake.

“It’s the whole reason there was a date in the first place.”  She looked at him.  “I shouldn’t have let what happened yesterday between us happen.  It was entirely unprofessional.”  She stroked the back of his hand with her fingertips as it rested on her upper thigh.  “What’s even worse is that I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting more.”  She whispered.  Joker smiled wolfishly.  He eased his fingers under the hem of her dress, watching as she licked her lips.

“You have quite a cache of secrets, Harls.”  Joker teased.

“No more than you I suspect, J.”  She countered.  Joker smiled again.  His fingers found her panties.  As skimpy as her dress.

“How about a trade?”  He suggested.  “Hm?”  Harleen’s breath was shaky though she tried to remain composed.

“A trade?”  He nodded.

“Secret for a secret.  You tell me one of yours and I’ll tell you one of mine.”  Joker watched her consider it.  A frown appeared.

“I don’t think I could trust your secrets.”  Joker’s hands stopped.

“Why not?”  Harleen gave him a small smile and rolled her eyes.

“I’m pretty sure that of all the hundreds of stories you’ve told me in our sessions, none of them are true.”  Joker pouted.

“Are you saying you don’t believe me, doc?”  Harleen giggled and Joker’s stomach tightened.  He sighed.  “Fine.  How about I _promise_ that any secret I tell in exchange for yours will be true?”  Harleen was intrigued.  “However, you cannot request specific secrets.  The secrets disclosed are at the discretion of the discloser.”  Harley giggled again.

“Okay.”  Joker waited.

“You start, Harls.”  Harleen seemed to snap herself out of a daze and she nodded.

“Okay, um….”  She looked out the window.  The rain had started and was pattering gently against her window.  “I asked Dr. Leland to change our therapy rooms.”  Joker nodded.

“She told me.”  Harleen scowled.

“Oh, did she.” She muttered.  Joker chuckled.  “Okay, well, she approved it.  Did she tell you that?”  Joker frowned.

“No.”  Harleen smiled.

“The new room has working A/C.”  Joker couldn’t deny the thought of an open, cool room to relax in for an hour a day, five days a week was preferable to the hot box he was currently shoved in to.  Harleen nudged his shoulder with her knee.

“What?”

“It’s your turn.”  Joker gave her a puzzled look.  She looked hurt.

“You promised.  Secret for a secret.”  She explained.  He grinned.

“Right, right, right.”  He moved his fingers around her thigh and rubbed the moistened fabric nestled between them.  She held a moan between her tightly sealed lips.  “I hate peas.”  She bit her lip to keep from crying out in pleasure and somehow scowled at him all at once.

“That’s your secret?”  She demanded.  Joker nodded.

“One hundred percent true.”  Harleen sighed in defeat before yelping as Joker dipped a finger between her soft folds.  “Your turn, doc.”  Harleen bit the second knuckle on her right index finger and moaned.

“Okay.”  She hummed.  “I’ve been thinking about kissing you since our first session together.”  Joker pressed his thumb against her clitoris and made a slow circle.  Her eyes fluttered shut and he moved forward until their faces were a hair away.

“I want to kiss you right now.”  He confessed.  Harleen’s eyes snapped open and landed on his.  Her lips curved into a delicious smile before Joker smothered them with his own.  He slid his free hand beneath the thin fabric of the dress and found her nipple.  He rolled it between his fingers.  Harleen moaned into his mouth as he worked her into a frenzy.  She came around his finger, her fingers curled into his lime green hair holding him to her.  Joker pulled his hands from her and sat back.  She was panting, her lids were heavy over her eyes as she watched him.

“I think-” Someone knocked at the door twice, then once, then twice.  Joker sighed and shook his head.  He leaned down and gently kissed her lips.

“To be continued, Doctor Quinzel.”  He assured her before walking to the door and letting his guard lead him back to his cell before the shift change.  _One more day_.


	6. Gifts and Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it has been so long since my last post. My dog passed away and I just haven't been able to get myself in the mood to write. That said, I hope you guys like this chapter and thank you for your patience and understanding.

Harleen was already in the new therapy room when the guards escorted Joker in.  He was late for a change.  Unbeknownst to him, the change in room had come with a change in security measures.  His hand and wrist shackles had been exchanged for a strait jacket and the guards had had a hell of a time trying to coax him into it.  They tased him into a stupor before they could wrangle his arms through the sleeves.  His ankle shackles remained and after the tasering, it took four guards to drag him down the hallways and into the new room.  Harleen’s temper flared when she caught sight of him.

“What the hell did you gorillas do to him?”  She screeched.  Joker’s lips pulled back into a cocky smile that the guards couldn’t see.  “We’re supposed to have a _therapy_ session.  Do you morons know what that means?”  She waited a beat.  “ _It means he has to be able to_ talk _to me!_ ”  Joker saw her hands curled into fists at her sides.  _Is she planning on fighting them here and now on my behalf?_

“Look, Dr. Quinzel, we were ordered to put him in a strait jacket.  He resisted so we had to use a bit of force.”  Cavanagh argued.  He was obviously getting tired of being bossed around by this small woman.  _Wonder how long it will be before he snaps and goes on one of those disgruntled worker rampages_.

“A _bit_?  You had to use ‘a _bit_ ’ of force?  You practically drove him catatonic!”  Cavanagh rolled his eyes.

“There are worse things than a battered psychopath.” _Oh, maybe not the smartest choice there, Markie Mark._   Harleen stepped toward him and, for all his macho man behavior, Cavanagh took a step back.

“I know you have your own issues, Mark.  Your father used to abuse you and your mother before he was tossed in jail or rehab or whatever and disappeared from your life.  You swore up and down that you would never be weak again.  Nobody was ever going to treat you like he treated you and your mom.  But you know what, Mark?”  She continued walking toward him, backing him towards the door.  “You are _never_ going to be able to escape that wriggling feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes you wonder if you aren’t becoming just like your old man.”  She gripped the door in her hand as he stood in the hall with the other guards.  Cavanagh’s face had drained of color.  “Well, let me save you the trouble of wondering.  The answer is yes, you _are_ just like him.  Abusing those you think you’re better than.  You’re just like your father.”  Harleen slammed the door in his gaping face and turned to face Joker who was seated at the table, quietly watching the affair.

“My, my.”  He remarked.  “I think Markie Mark might be taking you off his Christmas card list.”  Harleen furrowed her brow.

“Cavanagh?  I really don’t talk to him outside of him escorting you to and from our sessions.”  Joker frowned.

“Did you dig up all that dirt on him just for the occasion?”  Harleen tilted her head to the side.

“What?  I didn’t dig up anything.”

“All that stuff you said to him about his parents and the abuse?”  Harleen shook her head and gave a wry chuckle.

“Oh, that.  That was all just simple deduction.  You don’t get to where he is if your childhood was all sunshine and family fun times.”  _More brains than I gave her credit for._   He smiled at her.

“Can you do me?”  Harleen looked at him skeptically.

“Do you?”  Joker nodded emphatically.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah just like you did him.”  Harleen shook her head slowly.

“I don’t think so.”  Joker whined.

“Aw, c’mon, doc!”  Harleen shook her head again.  She walked over to the table and reclaimed her seat.  Joker narrowed his eyes and frowned.

“No more manners, Dr. Quinzel?”  Harleen looked over at him.

“You were late today.  I was already seated when you got here.  If anyone were lacking manners, it would be you.”  Joker took a second to consider it before breaking into laughter.

“Alright, Harls.  You win.”  Harleen was smiling back at him fondly.  For the first time since he entered the room, he took note of her appearance.  Her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail at the base of her neck.  Her hands, usually chapped and dry, were smooth.  Her nails were freshly manicured with a simple clear coat of nail polish covering each one.  Her lipstick was a shade darker than the usual pale pink and her lashes had a coat of mascara on them.  “Did you get yourself all made up for me?”  He hedged.  A deep blush brightened her cheeks and Joker had his answer.

“I didn’t think you’d notice.”  She admitted.  Joker leaned forward, the only thing holding him to his spot was the bolt securing his ankle shackles to the floor.

“I notice everything about you, _doctor_.”  He assured her.  Her lips parted and Joker wanted to run his tongue around them.  He leaned back.  “Your turn.”  Harleen twisted her mouth in thought before she remembered their deal.

“I once ate a live grasshopper.”  Joker wrinkled his nose in disgust making Harleen giggle.

“What the hell would you do that for?”  He demanded in a tone that suggested any answer she gave would be personally offensive.  She giggled more.

“I was seven and it was a dare.”  Joker retained his disgust.

“That’s repulsive.”  She laughed.

“I was the only girl in the neighborhood besides my newborn baby sister and a one year old down the street.”  Harleen shrugged.  “Had to prove I could hang with the boys.”  She leaned forward.  “It tasted like peanut butter.”  She informed him with a wink.  Joker looked like he was about to be sick.  “Your turn.”  She announced gleefully.

“I don’t know if I _want_ to know any more of your secrets, Harls.”  Harleen giggled.

“Oh, c’mon, it ain’t that bad!”  She said, her accent drizzling onto her words.  Joker rolled his eyes.

“Whatever you say, doc.”  He thought for a moment.  “I once had a dog named Costello.”  Harleen smiled.

“What kind of dog?”  Joker shrugged.

“Some kind of mutt.  He wasn’t very big, but he had a lot of hair.”  Joker shook his head.  “Took me forever to brush the knots out.”

“What happened to ‘im?”  Joker looked out one of the many windows that lined the top of one of the walls in the room.

“Some two-bit thug shot him in the head.”  He replied with all the gusto and emotion of someone reading a shopping list.  Harleen, on the other hand, looked like she might cry.

“I tried finding my father one time when I was in high school.  Got really into the whole Veronica Mars thing and thought I could find him and make him take my sister and me away from our bitch of a mother.”  Joker returned his gaze to Harleen.

“Did you find him?”  Harleen shrugged.

“It mighta been him, but it coulda been some random Joe on the street.”  She toyed with her pen in her hands.  “I eventually wised up and decided my sis and I were better off on our own anyhow.” _So many daddy issues.  Doctor, I think you may need some therapy of your own._

“Of all the things there is to miss from being on the outside, I miss my lipstick the most.”  Joker declared, changing the subject.  Joker could see the doubt in Harleen’s eyes.  “Honest.”  He swore.  She finally nodded in acceptance of the secret.

“I wanted to quit gymnastics my junior year of high school, but in what I had planned to be my final competition, a college scout promised me a full ride if I kept it up.  So I continued.”  Harleen stared at the table while revealing her secret making Joker believe that there was more to it than what she admitted.

“Why did you want to quit?”  He asked.  Harleen stared at the table in silence for a few long seconds before meeting his eyes coolly.

“Sorry.  It’s your turn to share a secret.”  Joker adjusted himself in his seat and observed her.  Something about this secret was different.  It weighed heavier on her than even her absentee father.

“I have what some may call ‘anger control issues’.”  Joker stated.  Harleen let out a short, hollow laugh.

“That isn’t a secret, J.”  Joker bared a metal fang at her.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I was getting to it.”  He grumbled.  “The secret is; I _don’t_ have anger control issues.  Killing people _is_ how I control my anger.”  Harleen grimaced and shook her head.

“That isn’t a very good method for control.”  Joker shrugged indifferently.  “Have you tried yoga?”  Joker rolled his eyes at her.

“I’m as flexible as I need to be.”  Harleen huffed, but ultimately decided to let the matter drop for now.  “I wonder if _you_ are still as flexible as I imagine you to be.”  He drawled.  Harley flushed and her breath caught in her throat.

“I may not be Olympic worthy, but I’m still in fighting shape.”  Joker gave her a wide, toothy grin.  _I can’t wait to see that for myself._  

“We are getting off topic.  I believe you owe me a secret.”  Joker leaned forward and stared at her expectantly.  She sighed again.

“When I was in second grade, I got into a fist fight with another kid who tried to tell me Santa Claus was real and the reason I didn’t get presents was because I was on the Naughty List.”  Joker scowled.

“That wasn’t the secret I was looking for.”  Harleen smiled at him.

“’The secrets disclosed are at the discretion of the disclosure’, remember?”  Joker’s chest rumbled.  _I meant_ me, _doc._   Her phone went off and Joker stretched back in his chair.  She slowly collected her things and stood.  “You start tomorrow, Mr. J.”  She told him with a wink.  Joker said nothing, still bitter about her deliberately taunting him with her secrets. 

* * *

 

Joker was restless in his cell.  He lay on his bed for a few minutes before standing and pacing across the small space.  A few minutes later, he threw himself back on the bed and dug his fingers into his hair to grab fistfuls by the roots and pulled.  This woman was driving him up a wall.  _And yet, when given the perfect opportunity to kill her…._   Joker shook his head.  _No.  It_ wasn’t _the perfect opportunity.  I wouldn’t have been able to take my time.  If she had screamed, guards would have been in her office in seconds.  And I plan on making her scream._

The same guard that escorted him to and from her office on Saturday appeared at his cell.  He quickly opened the hole and slipped a small box through.  Joker watched it drop to the floor, waiting until the guard closed the hole and walked away before he stood and examined it.

It fit in the palm of his hand and had a red ribbon tied around it and fashioned into a small bow at the top.  Joker untied it and pulled the lid from the box.  Inside was a tube of bright red lipstick and a note.

Mr. J,

You mentioned a while ago that you missed

your red lipstick.  How could you be the Clown Prince

without it?  I don’t know what brand you usually use

but I thought you might like to have this anyway.

See you tomorrow,

H.Q.

 

The note was signed with a kiss in what Joker assumed to be the lipstick that she had gifted him.  He opened the tube and examined it in the light.  It wasn’t as dark as he preferred, but she hadn’t cheaped out on the cost.  It was a no smear, waterproof lipstick.  _Aw, doc, you really_ do _care._   He smiled softly at the note as he rubbed the color onto his lips.  He knew it wasn’t perfect and that was the point.  The Clown Prince was alive and well.

And eagerly anticipating his next rendezvous with the lovely Doctor Quinzel.


	7. A Distraction

Joker went back and forth the rest of the week.  Some days, he would peacefully allow the guards to strap him into his strait jacket.  Other days, he would fight against them.  This always resulted in him being tasered and had Dr. Quinzel flying into a fit of rage at the guards.  Mark Cavanagh had apparently learned his lesson as he no longer responded with anything other than, “Sorry, Dr. Quinzel.”

The guards hadn’t paid any attention to his new/old look.  He supposed they figured if anyone could get anything while locked up in maximum security, it was Joker.  And they were right.  Although the solitary confinement made it the slightest bit trickier to accomplish.  But Joker was the master at making friends in…varied places.

After he had snapped Dr. Evans’ neck, Leland had sentenced him to eight weeks of solitary confinement in his already solitary cell.  A sense of narcissistic pride filled Joker’s chest as one of only three patients deemed vicious enough to warrant their own cell block.  As of the moment, Joker was the only one in custody.

“Doctor Quinzel,” he started, drawing out each syllable of her name.  “I was thinking about taking a walk tomorrow night.”  Harleen looked confused as she shoved papers inside her folder to prepare to leave.  Her phone had chimed the end of their session, but his tone made her pause.

“A walk?”  Joker gave her an easy smile and nodded.

“It has been a long week and I haven’t touched you in _so_ long.”  He purred.  Harleen looked like she might have melted.  Luckily for her, the door opened and the guards came to take Joker back to his cell.  Harleen shook herself and walked quickly out of the room while Joker laughed behind her.

* * *

 

It was eleven forty-five on Saturday night.  Right on schedule, his payroll guard came to release him from his cell and lead him up to Harleen’s office.  Joker dismissed the guard before opening the door to find Harleen pacing back and forth in front of her window.  She was gnawing on her thumb but stopped when she heard him come in.  Her thumb rested against her bottom lip.  Her mouth parted slightly as if she were on the verge of speaking.

Joker shut and locked the door before meandering over to stand in front of her.  He picked up a strand of her loose hair and watched the curl fall around his finger.  He sighed inwardly as he took in her appearance.

Her hair was down and was considerably longer than he thought it would be.  It hung to her middle back in a tumble of blonde curls.  Her lashes were thick with mascara and her lips were painted red.  _Too bad she didn’t wear that red dress_ … Joker mused.  She was in a light green halter top paired with a short, white skirt.  Her feet were bare.  He leaned down and touched his lips to hers before abruptly pulling away. _What am I?  A smitten little schoolgirl? I have more self control than this.  I want her to suffer._

Harleen was oblivious to his internal war.  Her hands had come to rest on his chest and she leaned in toward him.  Desperate for more.  Joker shoved her away and scrubbed his hands over his face.  _What am I doing here?_

“Did I do something wrong?”  Harleen asked.  Her voice was barely more than a whisper.  Her tone was pleading, something that typically made Joker eager to put a bullet in their brains and somehow only making him want to bury himself inside her.

“Frequently.”  He barked.  Harleen was quiet behind him.  He wondered if she might leave.  Instead, he heard her moving closer.  She slipped around him to find his eyes.  She didn’t appear wounded or disappointed.  _No, that look is closer to… determination._ Her small, pink tongue darted out from between her lips to moisten them.  Her hands started at his chest before moving south.

“I’m sorry, J,” she breathed. “Can I try and make it up to you?”  Her fingers slid beneath the elastic waistband of his Arkham Inmate pants.  Her fingertips brushed his rigid staff.  He sucked in air between his teeth and in the same moment, gripped her hair at the back of her head by the roots.  She looked at him skeptically.  Unmoving.  Waiting for his answer.  He pulled her to him and crushed her mouth beneath his.  Her hand curled around his shaft and, _my GOD that feels amazing!_  After a few seconds he yanked her back by her hair.

“You better make it count, doc.”  He hissed.  She grinned and went to her knees. She pulled his cock from the trousers and stroked it gently.  Joker ground his teeth and a low rumble wrestled its way from his chest as she took him in her hot, wet mouth.  _Holy Hell.  If I don’t sit down, I’m going to fall on the floor._ Joker’s hand was still curled in her hair and he used it to pull her from him.  She looked up at him.  Shock and confusion pulling at her delicate features.  He moved back to the couch, dragging her with him by the hair, and sat down forcing Harleen to her knees in front of him.  She frowned up at him quizzically. 

“I believe you were making it up to me, Doctor.”  Harleen grinned leaning forward to run her tongue up the underside of his shaft.  She swirled her tongue around the head and sucked it between her lips.  Joker growled softly.  One of her hands cupped his balls and massaged expertly while the other hand made small strokes at the base of his cock where her mouth couldn’t reach.

The hand fisted in her hair tightened as he exploded into her mouth.  There was a beat of silence before Joker pulled his hand away from her head and she sat back, spitting his cum onto the floor.  She stood, walking over to her desk and grabbing napkins from one of the drawers.  She wiped her mouth with one and tossed a couple to Joker who used them to clean himself.  When he looked up, she was standing over him.  A hesitant smile on her face.

“What?” _Is she laughing at me?  Do I look foolish?_   Her cheeks brightened and she dropped her eyes shyly to the ground.

“Did that make up for whatever I did to upset you?”  She asked the floor.  She toyed with one of the tassels on her rug with her toe.  Joker relaxed into the couch.  _Why was I upset with her?_ He pondered.  _What was she making up to me?_   He gave her a shrug which she took as acceptance.  She sat down on the couch making sure to keep half a cushion between them.

“I think I may owe _you_ one, Harls.”  Joker ruminated.  Harleen tilted her head to the side.

“For what?”  Joker pointed to his lips.

“The lipstick.”  He stretched his arms above his head for a second before resting them across the back of the couch.  “You made me feel like me again.”  He confessed.  He pulled his feet up so that he was sitting criss-cross on the seat and turned his body to face her.  “Alright, go ahead.  One thing.  Ask me for one thing.”  _A last request_.  He reassured himself.  Harleen grew pensive.  Joker watched her think over her request bemused.  She gnawed at her bottom lip and suddenly her cheeks reddened and she gave her head a hard shake.  She peeked back up at him and he smiled in what he hoped was reassurance.

“I really only want one thing at the moment.”  She murmured.  He watched her throat strain as she forced herself to swallow.  Joker leaned down and forced her to look at him.

“What is it?”  He coaxed.  She inhaled through her nose and mumbled her response.  Joker wrinkled his forehead.  “Come again?”  She blushed and averted her eyes, choosing to stare at the back cushion of the couch instead of at him.

“A kiss.”  She mumbled a bit more clearly.  The corners of his mouth twisted up in a smug grin.  “I feel dumb for asking for something like that after….”  She gestured to his crotch and he snorted.  She winced and buried her face in her hands.  Joker gripped her wrists lightly in one of his hands to pull them from her face and used his free hand to cup her cheek and turn her head to him.

He touched his lips softly to hers.  She sighed.  Her breath brushed against his mouth making his cock stiffen.  She tipped her head to give him better access.  He pressed his mouth more firmly against hers and forced her lips apart so his tongue could delve into her mouth.  He eased her back so they were lying on the couch.  She moaned and Joker released her wrists to run his hands over her body.

He slid his hands around her waist and up her back under her shirt.  He found her bra and deftly unclasped it before sitting back and pulling it and her shirt off in one move.  She yelped and covered her chest with her arms, her face beet red.  Joker frowned.  He grabbed her wrists again, a bit more forcefully this time, and pulled them up above her head.

“Do-” She started.  Joker pressed a finger to her lips and shushed her.  He dragged the finger down her chin and softly down her neck and collar bone until he reached her left breast.  He circled the sensitive skin before pinching her nipple between his thumb and index finger.  She whimpered and squirmed beneath him.  Eager to elicit another from her, he dipped his head and replaced his finger with his tongue.  She gasped and sucked in a shaky breath before moaning again.  “J.”  She keened.  Joker pulled back.  Unexpectedly pleased that she had called out his name.

He moved back up her body and molded their lips together.  He let go of her wrists and she took the opportunity to dig her fingers into his hair.  It was oddly comfortable.  He pressed his hips against hers.  She responded by rolling her hips up against his erection.  He broke their kiss and bit her neck.  She cried out in surprise and pleasure.  But he had a different reason for doing it.  _This won’t vanish overnight, doc.  Let’s see you explain this._

Joker let her go and stood.  She blinked up at him curiously.  Her hand went to her neck where his mouth had been not a second earlier.

“I’m surprised, Harls.  I thought you would want something more for your reward.”  He taunted.  “I offered you anything and you settled for a measly little kiss.”  Harley pulled herself into a sitting position and observed him carefully.

“Didn’t know a ‘measly little kiss’ could get you so hard.”  She retorted nodding toward his tented pants.  Joker leaned down so their faces were less than an inch apart.  She titled her lips up toward his, anticipating a kiss.  Instead, Joker moved to whisper in her ear.

“Your tits are still out.”  Flicking one of her nipples hard enough to bruise it and standing back up.  Harleen swiveled her head, looking for wherever he had tossed her top after taking it off her.  Joker spotted it lying on the other side of the couch out of her sight.  He stooped and picked it up.  Harleen caught sight of it in his hands and pulled her lip between her teeth.

“Are you going to let me have my shirt back?”  Joker shrugged and was on the verge of a response when the two-one-two knock sounded at the door.  He rolled his eyes and tossed Harleen’s top at her.

“Now _you_ owe _me_ , Harls.”  He informed her before meeting the guard at the door and tramping back to his cell.  _And I’ll make sure you pay up._

He was back in his cell before the thought struck him.  He had now given up three opportunities to end Harleen Quinzel’s life.  He had even let her get away with throwing shade at him.  Although he had found it amusing. 

Joker laid back on his bed and contemplated his doctor’s life.  He had always expected she would be a tool or a casualty in his escape.  He had never envisioned her as what she was.  A distraction.  Perhaps it was time to step up his escape plan.


	8. Escape

Empty eyes stared down at Joker and Joker stared back.  He smoothed the unruly mane of hair down before squeezing the head.  It caved easily beneath his fist, distorting the features until he finally released it and it jumped back to its rightful shape.  Joker let out a heavy breath and tossed the lion plushy across his cell to land in a heap amongst the others.

Over the past few weeks, Joker’s cell had begun to look more and more like a game booth at a carnival.  The process had taken time, but when Harleen had said she would do anything for him, she had delivered.  Joker rolled his head to the side to look at the pile of stuffed animals.  The lion had landed on its side facing the bed.  Its blank eyes watching Joker’s every move.

Harleen had become bolder.  She wore shorter skirts into their sessions.  Her blouses would have several buttons unfastened.  She made far more of an effort to look presentable.  No.  Not just ‘presentable’.  Alluring.  Sexy.  Seductive.  She wore blue at every chance because he had once revealed how much he liked the color on her.  How it brought out the brilliance of her eyes even when hidden behind those enormous glasses.

He did his best to be just as seductive towards her.  Couldn’t have her lose interest.  Move on to other patients.  Or worse.  Someone sane.  Joker would always tell himself that it was just to get her under his control.  Once he was finished with her.  Once he was out of Arkham and back on the streets ready to cause mayhem, destruction, and (best of all) chaos, she would be food for the fishes.

Joker thought back on that very important session.  The one where he knew he had her completely under his spell.  The one where he knew she was going to make everything just _so easy_.

* * *

 

“Doctor Quinzel,” he sang as she sat down in their session room, “you know I live for these moments with you.”  She giggled breathily.  He could see her excitement.  She fumbled around in the pocket of her lab coat casting a glance upwards at the security cameras.  These were higher quality than the previous session room’s.  Equipped with audio.  What Dr. Quinzel didn’t know was that Joker had already had the audio disable.  “What’ve you got?”  He asked.  He had a strong inkling he knew what it was.

Harleen withdrew something from her pocket and showed it to him with a shit eating grin plastered on her face.  “I brought you a kitty.”  She announced, nodding its head.  It was a beanie baby of a Siamese cat.  Joker stared at the toy for a second.  He noted the eyes, blue like hers.  He glanced up at the thought and saw a mischievous sparkle in them.  _Not just a toy_.

“How thoughtful.”  He smiled.  Harleen giggled again and set the cat down on the table between them.  She opened her folder picking up her pen.  Joker smiled sweetly at her and shook his head.

“Is there something wrong?”  She asked.  Her eyes darted between the toy, the cameras, and him.  _Time for a show_.  Joker shifted and shifted his shoulders in around drawing her attention to his strait jacket.  He shrugged.

“No, no.”  He assured.  “It’s just the monotony of the asylum.”  Harleen nodded in understanding.  “And I haven’t even gotten any free time.  I’ve been locked up in my cell with nothing but my own.…”  He trailed off as he studied her for a moment.  “ _Hectic_ thoughts.”  He finally finished.  She nodded again and brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“I’m sure I could help you.  Maybe find some way to make you more comfortable.”  Joker smiled and leaned forward toward her. 

“There is something you could do for me, Doctor.”  He confessed.  Harleen picked up on the serious tone in his voice.  She straightened.  Her attention pulled away from whatever fantasies were playing in her mind and focused on him.

“Anything.”  She told him eagerly.  Then she pulled back.  Tried to give an air of nonchalance.  “I mean, yeah.”  She shrugged.  Joker ran his tongue over the inside of his lower lip.  Here it was.  The million dollar question.  The true test of his skill.  Just how far had he pulled her?  If this went poorly, it would change the entire dynamic.  He would escape either way, but her response to this question was important.  Important for reasons he refused to acknowledge.

“I need a machine gun.”  He said it quickly and let it hang in there air.  He watched her gape as his words registered in her mind.

“A machine gun?” She stammered.  She looked back up at the cameras again.  Joker gave her his biggest grin.  She looked down at her hands.  Joker waited patiently.  Watching her.  She was worried about the cameras.  He understood she would give him no answer while she thought Leland could hear her.

“They can’t hear us.”  Joker reassured her.  She looked up at him in confusion.  “The audio doesn’t work.”  He repeated, jerking his hand back towards one of the cameras.  Harleen nodded.  She licked her lips before biting her cheek.

“I wouldn’t even know where to get a machine gun.”  She told him.  Tension that Joker hadn’t registered lifted from him.  He relaxed against his chair and smiled softly at her.

“I have a friend.  Tell him I sent you.”  Harleen nodded.  She cleared her throat and leaned on her arms and chewed at her bottom lip.

“And, um, how…how am I supposed to get the machine gun in to you?”  Joker gave her a cocky grin and shrugged.

“You’re an intelligent woman, _Doctor Quinzel_ , I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

* * *

 

And figure it out she did.  Although he had to say that her methods were a little inconvenient.  She had disassembled the machine gun into the smallest parts possible and sewn them inside stuffed animals to smuggle them in to him.  He had an entire machine gun and enough bullets to wage a small war.  He had spent the better part of the morning securing all the parts and calmly assembling the gun before tucking it securely under his mattress.

He looked up from the pile of plushies at the clock.  Five ‘til one.  He yawned and stretched his arms behind his head.  He could hear the clock ticking.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  _Boom!_   The wall behind the Joker exploded in a burst of dust and rubble.  Joker didn’t flinch.  He behaved as though he hadn’t heard or seen anything, although it would have been impossible not to.

A wave of costumed men rushed the building firing automatic rifles and downing all the guards in his cell block.  Jonny Frost, Joker’s right hand man, appeared at his door with an access card.  He slid the card and keyed in the code so the door would open.  Joker leisurely rolled out of bed and pulled the gun from his bed.  He cocked it and pushed past Frost to find his way to the surgical theatre.

“Boss, where’re you going?”  Frost asked from behind him.  Freedom was a hole in the wall to his left.  But revenge was down the hall to his right.  And he had promised himself revenge.  More importantly, he had promised _her_.

“There is some business I need to take care of.”  Joker declared.  He lifted his gun at three armed guards running toward him and fired without hesitation.  He continued walking as though nothing had happened.  His costumed goons ran ahead.  They threw grenades down hallways and fired shots at personnel and patients alike.  “Jonny, be a good boy and bring me Dr. Quinzel.  The goat will show you the way to her office.  I’ll be in theatre three.”  Joker took a step and stopped.  He turned back to Jonny.  “Oh, and Jonny, I want her alive in one piece.”  Frost nodded and the pair left without another word and Joker made his way down the hall.

As he passed, one of the psychiatrists that had once been assigned to him caught his eye.  He was choking on his own blood, but was fighting.  Joker looked at the debris strewn on the ground from one of the grenades and found a slightly bent steel bar.  He tossed his gun aside and picked up the bar.  He gave the psychiatrist his Shark Smile.  The smile that told everyone that someone was about to die.

“Dr. Bratin.”  He hissed.  The doctor whimpered and shrank against the wall.  “I remember you.”  He shoved the end of the steel bar against one of the two bullet wounds Bratin had sustained.  He screamed in pain and Joker’s smile grew wider.  He pushed the bar all the way through so the bar impaled him right through the liver.  Joker used his fists then.  He slammed his fists into Dr. Bratin’s face over and over and over again.

When he was finished, Joker stood and rolled his shoulders and neck.  He sighed in content before remembering his earlier mission and continuing on his way down the hallway.  He was just outside the door when he noted that his shirt was covered in Dr. Bratin’s blood.  He growled in disgust and ripped the shirt from his chest before slamming inside theatre room three.

A bullet hit the door as it opened and Joker looked at the impact spot.  His head swiveled back to the guard who had lined up another shot and fired.  Joker leaned out of the way and the bullet hit the door again.  Joker picked up a scalpel from a tray beside the door and threw it at the guard.  It struck the hand holding the gun. 

The guard managed to get out one last, unsuccessful shot before he dropped the gun.  Joker chucked another scalpel at him and struck him in the thigh.  The guard fell to the ground and pulled the scalpel out of his leg.  He crawled to the back of the operating room and into the scrub room.  Joker grabbed a broken piece of pipe from the hallway and followed him.

Frost and another goon came in while he finished the guard carrying Harleen.  She was screaming and fighting against the two men twice her size.  Joker was amused at her scrappiness.  She bit Frost as he was strapping her to the table.

“What do we have here?”  He postured.  Harleen relaxed a bit when she heard his voice.  He stood over her and pulled the lamp down so that it shone in her eyes.  He leaned down so he was a breath away from her.

“What’re ya gonna do?  Ya gonna kill me, Mista J?”  _There it is.  That adorable accent._   Joker raised his brows in mock surprise.

“What?”  He asked.  _Yes._   He shook his head.  _No._   He smacked his hand against his head.  _YES._   He shook his head more slowly and picked up the electrodes.  “Oh,” he breathed, “I’m not gonna kill ya.”   _Yet._   He toyed with the electrodes at the edge of her peripherals.  “I’m just gonna hurt ya.”  He could feel his blood pulsing in his head.  He had waited for this for so long.  “Really.”  His heart was hammering harder than the first time he had snorted coke.  “ _Really_.”  Harleen’s eyes were growing steely.  Determined.  “Bad.”  He wanted to begin, but Harleen’s even nodding was throwing him off.  She should have been petrified.

“You think so?”  She asked.  Joker’s jaw twitched.  “Well I can take it.”  Joker set the electrodes down and grabbed Frost’s leather belt from his pants.  He snapped it so that it was doubled down and shoved it between Harleen’s teeth.  She fought for a second before biting down on the material.

“I wouldn’t want you to break those _perfect_ , porcelain capped teeth when the _juice_ hits your brain.”  Harleen nodded almost imperceptibly, but Joker was already turning up the machine and sending the lightening into her head.

Joker had no idea how long into the procedure it was before he had passed out, but Harleen stayed conscious for a full five minutes.  Joker moved the prods around her head for a few minutes more before deciding he was bored and tossing them aside.  He stared down at her for a few long moments before rounding the table and heading for the door.

He grabbed his coat from one of his thugs and draped it over his naked shoulders.  He stopped when he heard a gun being cocked.  He saw Frost standing over Harleen.  Gun to her head.  _Let him kill her.  Save us the trouble._   But the joy of killing Doctor Harleen Quinzel belonged to the Joker.  He tsked at Frost and shook his finger.  Frost almost hesitated, but ultimately stowed his gun.

“Grab her.”  He ordered Frost.

“Boss?”  Joker was already walking out the door.

“She’s coming with us.”


	9. Captive

“Good evening, Gotham City.  This is Vickie Vale reporting to you, live, from in front of Arkham Asylum.  Earlier today, several members of the criminal underlord, The Joker’s crew attacked the asylum a freed the infamous killer clown.  Rescue teams are still searching the wreckage for survivors, but I am told the body count is already in the mid-twenties.

Along with Gotham’s self-proclaimed Clown Prince of Crime, several other inmates have made their escape.  Among them, Jonathan Crane AKA The Scarecrow.  If anyone has seen or heard anything that may lead to the recapture of these criminals, please contact the GCPD immediately.”  Joker sat in one of his many safe houses watching the stern blonde narrate the events that had transpired.

He took a swig from the half empty bottle of gin clenched in his fist and looked over to the heavy wooden door.  It was bolted shut from the outside securing his captive within would not escape.  He hadn’t intended her to live beyond his revenge.  He had never even considered bringing her along in the escape.  _Maybe I really_ do _need therapy.  My actions aren’t even making sense to_ me _anymore._

Joker finished the bottle and chucked it across the room where it struck the wall above a few of his cronies’ heads and shattered into a thousand pieces.  The men leapt from their seats, dropping their cards on the table and standing at attention.  Joker pulled himself out of his chair and trudged forward to the door leading to the basement.

“Whaddaya sittin’ around here for?”  He slurred.  “Go out ‘n cause some mayhem or whatever.”  The men exchanged deliberative looks before heading towards the exit.  “Hey!”  They stopped.  “Where’s Jonny Boy?”

“I think he ran out to get you dinner, Boss.”  One of the thugs guessed.  Joker pointed to the man that had spoken.

“You.  Stay.”  The man paled giving the Joker a short nod.  “The rest o’ ya, get lost!”  The other men high tailed it out the door as quickly as they could without so much as a backward glance to their fellow thug.  “Wha’s your name?”  Joker was standing with his hand on the door handle, barely looking at the man.

“Mackie.”  Joker nodded slowly and jerked the basement door open.

“Mackie.”  He muttered.  “Go check on my guest.”  He started down the stairs.  “Bring her some water.”  He shouted back over his shoulder. 

The basement was the most furnished room in the safe house.  It had crates of weapons and ammunition, bookshelves stuffed to the gills with books on everything from tactical advice to surgical texts, and three desks for Joker to work at.  It was also very well-lit whereas the rest of the house had more of a back road truck stop feel; dim lights with hazy, yellow halos around them.

Joker sat down at the middle desk and pulled out a large sheet of paper.  He had plans for Gotham.  More importantly, he had plans for Batman.  And his little sidekick, too. 

The liquor and coke wore off long before Joker even considered leaving the basement.  Frost had come down and left a bag of fast food on the desk to his left and immediately made himself scarce.  The house was still and quiet.  The scratching of his pen on the paper was the only noise.  Until it wasn’t.

Harleen’s high pitched screams echoed through the house followed by the shattering of glass.  Joker threw his pen on the desk and stood, knocking his chair to the ground.  He heard Frost shouting as he mounted the stairs.

Harleen had found one of Joker’s hand guns and was holding Frost and Mackie at gun point when Joker emerged from the basement.  She turned the gun and pointed it at Joker who met the barrel with a smile.  She seemed surprised to see him.  Surprised enough to let her guard down and allow Frost to disarm her.  And, because he was a brute with a short temper, Frost swept her legs out from under her and pinned her to the ground.

“Jonny,” Joker sang sweetly, “that is no way to treat a guest.”  Frost swallowed whatever retort he had in mind and obediently pulled himself off her.  Joker flicked his hand dismissively at the pair of men.  “Go make yourselves scarce.”  Mackie bolted from the house instantly.  Frost hesitated.  His eyes moved back and forth between his boss and the new problem.  After a few terse seconds, he quietly backed out of the house.

The moment he was gone, Joker walked over to Harleen and held out his hand.  She stared at him apprehensively.  Joker met her reserve with a tender smile.  She planted her hands firmly on the ground and boosted herself up on her own.  Joker clenched his hand into a fist and stuck his tongue in his cheek.  The rejection was clear, but he wasn’t sure why it bothered him quite so much.  _She’s probably just miffed about the whole_ torture _thing.  Although I_ was _under the impression that she liked it rough._

“Where am I?”  She demanded.  Her voice trembled slightly belying her brave demeanor and her accent was thick and unbridled.  Joker gave her a grand smile and held his arms aloft.

“This is safe house number seven.  Hidden away where winged rats can’t find us.”  She nodded slowly.

“And….”  She stopped and looked at him cautiously.  He nodded at her to continue.  “Who are you?”  She asked.  Joker’s nonexistent brows knit together.  He closed the distance between them and brought his hand up to gently stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers.  _She’s so_ soft.

“Do you really not know, Doctor?”  He whispered.  Joker watched her try to draw up her memories.  He remembered the fuzzy feeling.  The dark hole he swam in for days after his own electroshock therapy.  She was only a few hours out and Joker hadn’t bothered to use the muscle relaxer, the gel, or a timer.  Just raw, high powered electricity surging through her head for an indiscernible amount of time.

“It’s all… puddin’.”  She murmured.  She rubbed her head.  “That’s not the right word.”  Joker grinned and let his hand drop to settle at the crook between her neck and her shoulder. 

“It’s alright, Harls, it’ll all come back to you soon enough.”  Her lips twisted in thought.

“Harlequin.  Harley Quinn.  That’s me.”  She was speaking to herself.  “I’m Harley Quinn and you’re…Puddin’.”  Joker chuckled and shook his head.

“You’re half right, babydoll.”  Joker let go of her and flopped down in his chair to watch her.  She wrinkled her nose and examined herself.  She reached up to grab a fistful of her wavy, blonde hair and pulled it around to sniff it.

“Puddin’, why do I smell like a dive bar?”  Joker laughed finally taking note of the state of her.  Her hair was rife with debris.  Cement dust settled in her hair and on her clothes.  No doubt she smelled like smoke from the fires set in the asylum.  Her make-up had smeared and her lab coat was torn and frayed.

“You need a shower.”  Joker stood grabbing her hand and leading her back through the bedroom and into the bathroom.  There was no shower curtain, only a drain in the floor and a shower head attached to the wall.  The bathroom was small and the only towel in the house was hung on a hook on the door.  Even so, a shower was a shower.

Joker turned the nozzle and a jet of icy water spurted from the shower head.  He cranked it all the way to hot and turned to Harley.  He pointed to a bottle of shampoo on the shelf sitting beside a bar of soap.  “Soap, shampoo,” he pointed behind her, “towel.  Enjoy.”  He pushed past her and closed the door.  He forced the thoughts of Harleen undressing, of her naked body, from his mind.  Forced himself not to think of those perfect breasts.  The pink of her nipples.  The way her mouth curved around his dick.  He shook himself firmly and went to the closet.  He found one of his old dress shirts and a pair of boxers.

He returned to the bathroom, opening the door without bothering to knock and setting the clothes on the toilet.  He had intended to leave them there quickly and wait in the next room.  But she yelped in surprise at his return and his head jerked up instinctively.

Her hair was full of shampoo.  The stream of water caused the white suds to slip down her sleak, toned body.  She had covered her breasts with her arms and was balancing herself on one leg to hide her cunt, but every curve could be seen.  And her wide, blue eyes staring at him in shock.

Joker’s mouth ran dry.  He cleared his throat, running his tongue over the inside of his bottom lip as he took her in.  He wasn’t sure if his heart was pounding or if it had stopped altogether, but he knew he needed to get out of there.

“They aren’t much,” he turned her attention to the clothes, “but they’re clean.”  He stepped out of the threshold and into the bedroom and closed the door.  Joker walked across the room to the far wall and slammed his head against it hard enough to put a hole in the dry wall.  _This kind of reaction just from seeing her naked?  I’m worse than a thirteen year old virgin._

Joker stormed out to the main room and threw himself into his chair.  He was staring blankly at the television when Harley emerged hesitantly from the bedroom.  His grey dress shirt fell to her mid-thigh and completely hid the boxers beneath making her appear scandalous.  Though he remembered a time when she had worn considerably less.  Blood pumped into his member as he remembered the red bombshell dress that had taken his breath away that night in her office.  Her hair was wrapped up in the towel and her face was clean and clear of any make-up or grime.

She cleared her throat with a blush.  “I think I know the answer, but do you happen to have a washing machine in this place?”  Joker looked down and saw she was holding her clothes in her hands.  Joker shrugged and shook his head.

“Leave ‘em on the table over there and I’ll have someone get them cleaned for you.”  He gestured to the card table the men had been sitting at hours before.  Harley nodded as she crossed the room and set her bundle of clothing where he had said.  Joker watched her from his chair.  Thoughts whirred in his head as he tried to decide what to do with her now that he had gotten her.

Those same thoughts fled as Harley cried out in pain and fell to the floor without warning.  Joker jumped up from his chair.  _A side effect from the EST?  Residual electricity snaking its way back through her body?_   Then he saw the blood. 

She had been barefoot when she walked over to the card table and nobody had cleaned up the shattered glass from the gin bottle he had smashed against the wall earlier.  A generous shard of the glass was jutting out from the bottom of her foot along with several smaller shards in both feet.

Joker picked her up and carried her over to the kitchenette where he set her on the counter before searching for the first aid kit.  While every safe house varied in location and furnishings, there were three things that they all had without deviation.  A cache of weapons, a deck of cards, and a fully stocked first aid kit complete with class three controlled painkillers.

“Did you do that on purpose?”  Harley asked through clenched teeth.  Joker rifled through the first aid kit in search of tweezers and disinfectant.

“Do what on purpose?”  Having located the tweezers, he placed them on the counter and opened the cupboard to pull out a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“Make me walk over there barefoot so I would step on the glass.”  Joker stopped, tweezers in hand and looked at her.

“Why would I do that on purpose?”  Harley swallowed, giving him a small shrug.

“You seem like the kind of guy that would do something like that on purpose.”  _You aren’t wrong._

“But why would I?”  Harley shrugged again.

“Maybe you thought it would be funny.”  Joker bent down and used the tweezers to pull a few shards out of her foot.

“That would have only been funny if I didn’t worry about dealing with the aftermath.”  He retorted.  He turned Harley on the counter so that he could stick her bloody foot under the faucet.

“What do you mean?”  The water hit her foot and she cried out again.  Joker sighed.  He pulled her foot from the sink and sprayed a generous amount of peroxide on it before wrapping it in gauze.

“I _mean_ , that the funny part about jokes is that you don’t have to deal with the clean-up.  That’s when a joke is really funny.”  He set to work on the other foot.  “Take a stand-up comic.  They get up and start talking about something taboo and you find yourself laughing harder because at the end of the day, it wasn’t you who made the comments.  It’s the comedian that will deal with the media backlash.  Not you.  You can laugh at will.  Someone stepping on glass might ordinarily be funny, but here I am.”  He pulled the largest shard of glass from Harley’s foot.  She screamed as Joker slapped a fistful of gauze over it with one hand and used the other to find his readied sutures.  “Cleaning up the mess.”  Harley, to her credit, kept very still while Joker stitched her foot up.  No alcohol or Vicadin necessary.  “Not very funny.”  He finished, slapping a bandage over the stitches and rinsing his hands off in the sink.

“Okay, so it wasn’t for laughs.  Maybe it was to make sure I couldn’t run away then.”  Joker froze.  He moved only his eyes to look at her.

“Were you planning on running away?”  His voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it rumbled dangerously.  Harley was silent and the silence was making him angry.

“I wasn’t sure.”  She finally replied.  Joker’s upper lip twitched back.  He threw the small box into the cupboard and stalked to his chair.  Thick silence hung in the air between them.  “I was-”  Joker stared at the muted television screen.  “I _am_ a doctor.  A therapist.”  Joker grunted.

“Piss poor one.”  Harley glared at him.  He wanted to laugh.  She looked so adorably helpless trapped on the counter while trying to look fierce.  Joker rubbed his hand down his face and growled.

“I’m tired, Puddin’.”  Joker looked over at her.  The towel was falling from her head.  The buttons on her shirt were spaced too far apart leaving gaps where Joker could see the smooth, tight skin.

“Are you asking me to take you to bed, Harls?”  He rasped.  Harley’s mouth fell open and her eyes went wide with fear.  _Fear_?  Her lip trembled and her eyes went to the door.  _She wants to run._   Joker shook his head and stood up.  “You won’t get far with your feet all cut up.”  He told her.  He walked over to her and grabbed for her.

Joker flinched as she let out the loudest scream possible right next to his ear.  She swung at him with both hands, but Joker deflected her attack easily.  He caught her wrists in his hands and pulled them together so he could hold them in one hand while he hefted the rest of her over his shoulder and carried her to the bedroom.

He tossed her onto the bed and she scrambled backwards until she hit the headboard.  Tears were streaming down her face and she was breathing heavily.  Joker stood at the edge of the bed and stared at her.  She was obviously terrified, but there was also a calculative look about her.  She was ready to fight if attacked.  And she thought Joker was going to attack her.

“Cut it out.” He ordered waving a hand at her dismissively.  “When it comes to sex, I prefer the willing.”  Joker pointed his finger at her.  “You used to _be_ willing.”  She glared at him.  A silent accusation.  Joker growled, flexing his fingers and visibly controlling his desire for violence.

He huffed and stormed from the room without a backward glance.  He slammed the door behind him and bolted it before relaxing in his recliner and allowing himself to doze off.


	10. Hunger

The dog was scratching at the door.  Whining to get out.  He knew he should get up and let it out, but he was so tired.  The dog shook the handle and shoved itself against the door.  When that didn’t work the dog knocked.  It called his name through the door.

“Master J!”  It cried.  “Please let me out.”  Joker growled.  He sat up in the chair, his eyes still shut.  He grabbed an empty beer bottle from the floor and through it in the direction of the door.  The dog yelped and he heard it scurry against the floor.  Silence fell and Joker leaned back in his recliner.

“Mr. Joker?”  The dog whimpered.  “Is that you out there or is it the other one?  The big guy?”  Joker’s eyes snapped open.

“I don’t have a dog.”  He announced.  He jumped up from his chair, his bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor.  His knees, neck, and back all cracked loudly and drew his gun.  Someone behind him leapt up along with him.  Joker turned and saw Frost standing beside the card table across the room, gun drawn.  He had cleaned up the glass and was waiting patiently for an order.

“Mr. Joker, please let me go.”  Harleen continued.  Joker scrubbed his hands through his hair and stared at the door.  Her memories were obviously returning.  He heard her slump against the door and remembered her feet.  “I’m hungry.”  She whimpered.  Joker stowed his gun and indicated to Frost to do the same.  He waved Frost away and waited until the door closed behind the reluctant muscle man before walking to the bedroom door.

He gripped the dead bolt and slid it back.  He swung the door open.  Harleen fell back to the floor, her head landing between his feet.  They stared at each other in silent deliberation.  She wasn’t wearing her glasses.  The piercing blue of her eyes stared directly into his own.

Joker let his eyes wander down her body and found her feet.  The bandages were stained red, one foot more so than the other.  She had apparently forgotten her injuries when she woke up and tried to walk to the door.  Joker snarled and scooped her into her hands.

“Wait!  Stop!”  Harleen cried.  Her accent had gone to Joker’s disappointment.  She squirmed in his arms until he plopped her down on the kitchen counter and pulled up the foot he had stitched up to examine.  He carefully unrolled the blood soaked bandages from her foot and peeled pack the gauze.  Harleen winced and sucked in a sharp breath between her clenched teeth.  Her stitches had pulled apart and blood was pumping out.

“You tried to walk.”  He opened the cupboard and pulled the suture kit out of the first aid kit.  He opened the package and held onto her foot.  Harleen yelped and tried to pull her foot out of his grip.

“Nonononononononono.”  Joker’s upper lip curled back and he tightened his grip on the heel of her foot.  “Please, please, please.”  She cried.

“Shut up!”  He barked.  Harleen whimpered.  She began shaking her head, tears in her eyes.  Joker let out a heavy breath.  “You tore your stitches earlier.  You are losing a lot of blood.  If you don’t let me stitch this up, you will die from either blood loss or infection.”  Harleen’s jaw trembled as she looked at him.

“I don’t think I can stay still.”  She whispered.  Joker pursed his lips in thought for a moment.  He nodded and dug back through the first aid kit to retrieve a bottle of Vicadin.  He shook out two pills and handed them to her.  “What is this?”  She asked.

“Painkiller.”  Harleen nodded slowly.

“Could I have some water?”  Joker set down the suture needle and searched through the cupboards until he found a sleeve of plastic cups.  He filled one halfway with water and handed it to her.  He watched her swallow a mouthful of water before tossing back the pills and taking another large gulp.

“You know, you were never this needy in Arkham.”  Harleen frowned at him.  She was holding the cup with both hands just below her chin.  A pathetic excuse for a make-shift shield.

“If I remember correctly, it was _you_ that was needy back in Arkham.”  Joker narrowed his eyes at her.  “Lipstick, a therapy room with windows, a _machine gun_.”  Joker stuck his tongue in his cheek.

“I never asked for the new room.”  Harleen gave him a placid smile.  Joker’s hand curled into a fist.  He was seconds from wiping that smug smile from her face.

“Maybe not in so many words, but even a ‘piss poor’ therapist could figure out that you wanted a room with a view.”  Harleen’s eyelids drooped.  “And cool air.”  Joker picked her foot up again with one hand and the suture needle with the other.

“Alright, Harls,” he conceded, “I’ll admit the air conditioning was nice.”  He began stitching up her wound.  She flinched briefly, but the drugs had begun to do their job.

“I wanted you to be happy.”  She murmured.  Joker finished the last suture and began wrapping the bandages around her foot.  When he finished, he changed the bandage on her other foot.

“How would you know what would make me happy?”  The question came out harder than he had intended.  Harleen gave him an intoxicated grin.

“Oh, I know.”  She settled her hand against his chest and leaned forward on the counter.  “You’re just like any guy.”  Joker’s chest rumbled threateningly.  “You like comfort.”  She nodded to herself.  “Mmm and…pleasure.”  Her hand found its way to the waistband of his slacks.  Joker grabbed her hand in his own.

“I think you need to eat something, Harley.”  He pulled her hand from him and set it on her lap before moving towards the front door and pulling out his phone.

Frost answered on the first ring.  “Yeah, Boss?”

“I’m feeling Italian, Jonny Boy.  Get a large pizza with everything and a medium sausage pizza.  Breadsticks.”  Joker hung up and turned to find Harleen slipping from the counter.  He hurried over and grabbed her before she hit the floor.  She giggled while he adjusted her in his arms.

“Change your mind abou’ the pleasure, Puddin’?”  She touched her finger to the tip of his nose.  Joker fought back a chuckle and carried her into the bedroom.  “Ooh,” she hummed.  “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wantin’ ta get you inta bed.”  Joker shook his head.

“You’re going to be waiting a while longer, Harls.”  Harleen pouted and stroked her fingers through his hair.  His lids grew heavy.  The gesture felt good.  Comfortabe.

“Do you really mean that, Puddin’?”  She pouted.  Joker was becoming less sure.  He settled her on the bed, but she refused to let go.

“I mean it.”  He said firmly.  He pried her arms from around his neck and pressed her back into the bed.  He was ready for her to argue or seduce him.  But she went slack.  Joker realized she had fallen asleep.  Joker’s fingertips whispered against her soft skin.

Joker gritted his teeth together and clenched his fist.  He turned and made his way into the basement.

* * *

 

Harleen’s screams had Joker mounting the stairs yet again.  She was sitting up on the bed throwing everything within reach at Frost.  Joker pushed into the room and crossed to Harleen.

“Knock it off, Harley.”  He ordered.  Harleen met his eyes, a half-filled bottle of water was clenched in her hand ready to throw.

“He was trying to touch me.”  She accused.  Joker looked over to Frost who shook his head.

“I was only-”

“You don’t need to worry about Jonny.”  Joker pulled the water bottle from her hand and set it on the floor.  “He won’t hurt you or touch you again because if he does, he knows I would carve him up for thanksgiving dinner.”  Joker met Frost’s eyes coldly.  Frost clenched his jaw and gave a curt nod before leaving the room.

“I don’t like him.”  Harleen confessed.  Joker nodded and scooped her up in his arms to carry her out to the card table.

“I don’t think he likes you very much either.”  Joker set her in one of the chairs and opened the first box of pizza and pushed it towards her.  “You need to eat.”  Harleen grabbed a slice of pizza eagerly and scarfed it down.  The corner of his lips twitched upwards in amusement as he dug into his own pizza.

“Thank you.”  Harleen mumbled around a mouthful of food.  Joker looked up in surprise.  He swallowed and licked his lips.

“What for?”  He crossed the room and filled two cups with water.  He returned and handed one to her and downed the other himself.  Harleen took a sip of water and smiled shyly at him.

“Dinner.”  She cleared her throat.  “This is the first meal we’ve ever had together.”  Joker set down his slice of pizza and folded his hands together.

“I kidnapped you.”  Harleen looked out the window and nodded around another bite of pizza.  Joker rubbed the back of his fingers under his chin.  “I tortured you with electric shock.”  Harleen frowned and rubbed her temples with her free hand.

“Yeah, that wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped.”  Joker was incredulous.  She shrugged.  “I’ve still had worse.”

“I used you.  Seduced you just to get you to help me escape.”  Harleen took one last bite of pizza and set it back in the box.  She chewed slowly and swallowed before turning to face him.

“I wanted to be used.”  Joker opened his mouth to argue.  “And if the only reason you seduced me was so that you could escape, then why did you bother bringing me with you?”  Joker’s jaw snapped shut.  He had been trying to work out the answer to that question since they pulled out of Arkham.  “I think maybe I seduced you right back, Puddin’.”  Joker growled.

“Don’t call me that.”  Harleen looked at him wide-eyed.

“What?  Puddin’?”  She scratched her jaw.  “It kinda fits, don’tcha think?  You turned my brain to puddin’ and I can turn you to puddin’ beneath my hands.”  She shrugged.  “Or mouth.”  She reached out to him and he pulled back.

“Don’t be so sure.”  He replied stiffly.

“Ah, c’mon, Mista J, I once blew ya so hard you about keeled over and had to sit down.”  Joker chewed on his cheek.

“I’ve been pretty nice to you so far, Doctor Quinzel, but you are starting to push the wrong buttons.”  Harleen swallowed and nodded carefully.

“I think the drugs are still in my system.”  She admitted.  She started to stand and Joker grabbed her into his arms immediately.

“I told you not to stand.  I won’t stitch you up again.”  Harleen blushed and nodded.  She held herself upright with her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

“Sorry.”  Her voice was muffled.  “I’m sorry.”  Joker walked her into the bedroom and set her on the bed.  She let go the second her back hit the mattress and she rolled away from him.

Joker stood at the edge of the bed.  His eyes were trained on her.  A few of the buttons had worked themselves apart on her shirt.  The boxers, made for men to be loose, rode up her thin, muscular thigh and exposed the lower curve of her butt.

He put one knee on the bed and moved so that he was braced on his arms above her.  She rolled onto her back to look up at him.  Neither one moved.  Each daring the other to make the first move.  Harleen’s tongue flicked out from between her lips to moisten them and Joker lost.

He slid his fingers under her head and through her hair, pulling her up to meet his mouth.  She tasted as good as he remembered.  Harleen moaned against his mouth while he freed one hand from her hair to slip beneath the shirt and tug at her hardened nipple.

He undid the rest of the buttons and dipped his head to swirl his tongue around the sensitive flesh.  Harleen cried out, her back arched up to give him better access.  He grinned around her nipple setting his teeth on it and pulling.  She yelped in pleasurable pain.  He moved lower, both hands sliding beneath the fabric of her borrowed boxers.  She squirmed eagerly while he tugged them away to find her already moist.

She panted noisily while his tongue dipped in and out of her folds.  He used his index and middle fingers to circle her clitoris before replacing them with his tongue and using them to enter her.  She cried out in ecstasy as she came around his fingers.  Joker pulled himself back up her body and pushed those same fingers into her mouth.  She sucked them clean instantly and Joker pulled his hand free.

“Turn me into Puddin’, sweetheart.”  He rasped in her ear.  She nodded in understanding and unbuttoned his slacks to pull his cock and balls free.

She started slow.  She peppered feathery pecks around the head before letting her tongue slide upward the shaft from base to head.  Joker groaned and fisted his hand in her matted hair.  He made a mental note to get her a hairbrush as soon as possible.  Then she began sucking him.  Her lips puckered over his shaft and her hand worked back and forth from the base to her mouth.  He spilled himself into her and sagged back against the wall.

Harleen leaned over the edge of the bed and spat out his cum.  She looked from the bathroom to him and back.

“If you need to go, you’re going to have to crawl.”  Harleen frowned.  She slid off the bed and onto her knees until she was on all fours and could crawl to the bathroom.  Once inside, she slammed the door shut leaving Joker alone with his thoughts once again.


	11. Catharsis

“It has been three weeks since the assault on Arkham and the subsequent escape of the Joker.  Official reports put the body count at twenty-one, seven of whom were patients at Arkham.

Police are still searching for Doctor Harleen Quinzel.  Originally, she was believed to be another casualty of the assault, but her body has yet to be discovered.  After questioning Doctor Joan Leland, head of psychiatry at Arkham Asylum, investigators believe that the Joker kidnapped her in a fit of madness.”  The screen flipped to show Leland’s face in a prerecorded interview.

“After the Joker killed his previous psychiatrist, Doctor Carter Evans, Harleen volunteered to take his place.  She was by no means our most experienced therapist, but few were willing to risk their lives treating him.

“It wasn’t long before the Joker began to exhibit positive signs in his sessions.  Dr. Quinzel was patient with him and was able to get him to open up in a way that no other therapist had been able to before.  But I became concerned that perhaps his interest in her went beyond doctor/patient.  I talked to Dr. Quinzel about removing the Joker form her care, but she insisted that she was on the verge of a breakthrough.  I agreed to let her stay on as his therapist.  Now I wonder if I didn’t sign her death warrant.”  To her credit, Leland looked genuinely distraught over the unknown fate of Harleen.  The news flipped back to Vickie Vale.

“Once again, that was Doctor Joan Leland, head of psychiatry at Arkham Asylum.  At this time Doctor Harleen Quinzel is still missing and, regretfully, presumed dead.”  Vickie’s eyes glazed over briefly and Joker knew she was probably remembering her own kidnapping.  Joker killing her parents in front of her.  Batman swooping in too late to save her parents, but just in time to save her.  “People in the Joker’s crosshairs never live long.”  Joker grinned at the screen viciously.

They had moved from Safe House Seven a week earlier.  The new one was outfitted with a training facility.  To call it a safe ‘house’ would be misleading.  The new digs were in what was once a box company.  It was spacious with bright, fluorescent lighting and several secure rooms.  Joker’s private room was in the previous manager’s office with windows overlooking the factory floor.

The new place also had more furniture than the last.  He still had his desks, but he also had a plush couch and a large, flat screen television in his office.  Down in one of the old store rooms, he had set up Harleen’s bedroom.  He had had it furnished with a large, pillow top king-sized bed, a closet with specially tailored clothes for her to wear, and her own television.

Her foot had healed for the most part and Joker had finally worked out what he wanted to do with her.  Or what he _needed_ to do with her as it happened.  He couldn’t work out a good reason to keep her around.  Sure, she was good for a couple blow jobs, but he could get those from any broad on the street.  He decided that what had been so alluring to him about her had been her potential.  Her usefulness.  So it was decided that she would train up a bit to become a productive member of his gang.

She was surprisingly good.  And a quick learner to boot.  Joker watched her flipping over a few of his more trusted men on the training grounds below.  She was wearing a sports bra and tight, black athletic pants that hugged and accentuated her every curve.  Her hair was pulled up in a tight bun, away from her face.  She had a small, breathless smile curved on her lips.

_At least she’s enjoying herself_.  One of the men managed to catch her jaw with a strong right hook and she cried out and stumbled back.  Something in Joker’s gut twisted at the sight of another man striking her.  The men didn’t back off, forcing Harleen to go on the defensive.  She jumped over one of the charging men and came down hard on her foot.  He saw her wince and wobble slightly.  The men noticed.  They were all heavily trained in various forms of combat.  They used the wobble to their advantage, knocking her to the ground and kicking.

Joker rose from the couch and walked out to the balcony.  “Stop.”  The large room was empty enough that he didn’t need to raise his voice above a casual speaking tone for it to carry over to them.  They obeyed immediately and stepped away from Harleen who had curled up into the fetal position to take the beating.  After a moment, she looked up and found the men focused on the Joker.  She uncurled herself and stood.  Joker frowned down at her.

“Somebody give her a gun.”  One of the men held a small pistol out for her and she carefully grabbed it.  Joker pulled his walkie talkie from his belt and flipped it on.  “Bring him out.”  Two men emerged from one of the back rooms dragging a barely conscious man.  They set him in front of Harleen and stepped away.

Joker watched her face as the recognition seeped in.  Her old gymnastics coach from high school.  Harleen looked horrified to see him and then the weight of the gun in her hand made her hand twitch.  Horror turned to anger.  She glared down at him for a long, silent minute.  Then she looked up at Joker.

“Kill him.  He’ll probably be the easiest one.”  Joker leaned against the rail to watch.  She returned her steely gaze to her old coach.

“Quinzel?”  The man sputtered.  He relaxed.  “Help me out here, Leeny.  These men kidnapped me.  They beat me.  Tortured me.”  He explained.  Harleen listened emptily.  Her jaw flexed.

“You expect me to help you?”  She whispered.  Joker could barely make out what she was saying.

“Of course, Leeny.  I mean, I helped you, didn’t I?”  Harleen tilted her head.

“You helped me?”  She demanded a bit louder.  “When?”  The coach licked at his dry lips.

“You wouldn’t have gotten that scholarship without me.  I got you out of your mother’s house.”  He swallowed.  Harleen’s eyes were wet.  The gun shook in her hand.

“I got that scholarship _in spite_ of you.”  She snapped.  Her voice trembled on a trapped sob.

“What did I ever do to you, Leeny?”  Harleen clenched her teeth and pointed at him with the gun.  His eyes widened and he leaned away from her.

“What did you _do_ to me?  What did _you_ do to _me_?”  She parroted.  “You _raped_ me!”  The coach, evidently not a smart man, let out a short chuckle.

“I raped you?”  Harleen’s entire body was shaking.  “Leeny, you were practically _begging_ for me to bang you.  Staying after practice for hours after the other girls had gone home.  Asking if you could sleep in the gym overnight.”  Harleen shook the gun at him.

“You ever think that maybe that was just because I didn’t wanna go home?  Huh?  You ever think that maybe with my mother all coked out twenty-four seven I needed a safe place to go?”  The coach thought about it for a minute.

“You never said no.”  Harleen aimed at his head and squeezed the trigger.  Again and again she fired into his body long after her was dead.  Tears mixed with the blood splatter and left garish, red streaks running down her cheeks.  When the clip was empty, she chucked the gun at his lifeless corpse and stormed to her bedroom at the back of the warehouse.

Joker thought he would have had to push her a bit further before she was prepared to kill.  He stared at her bedroom door.  She was much more vicious than he had given her credit for.  He started to laugh.  It filled his chest and left him gasping for air in a way that hadn’t happened in months.  Not since Batman lost it after the bombings.

* * *

 

“You’re gearing up for something.”  Harleen declared.  Her hand trailed over his blueprints and scribbled notes as she swayed her hips provocatively over to where he sat on the couch.  Joker nodded and reached out to grab her wrist.  He tugged her down onto his lap and put his hand in her hair.

“I have something in mind for you, Harls.  If you feel ready to prove yourself.”  She didn’t really have a choice.  His attachment to her was becoming more and more difficult to explain away.  She either proved herself now or he had no choice left, but to dispose of her.

“I’m ready.”  She agreed quickly.  Joker smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  Her glasses tilted up when his finger knocked against them.  He pulled them off and brushed his lips against hers softly.  Harleen squirmed on his lap.  She hated when he was gentle, but he couldn’t resist.  Knowing how much she wanted him to grab her, squeeze her, pull her hair only made him touch her softer.  He was holding himself back and that act in itself both intrigued and infuriated him.

“Go spar for a bit.”  Harleen stuck out her bottom lip.

“I thought you were going to tell me about this job you have in mind for me.”  Joker shook his head and pushed her off his lap and onto the couch beside him.

“Later.  Go spar.”  He stood and began looking over his plans with his back to her.  He heard her huff and stomp from his office to do as he said.  He supposed she didn’t know he was still on the fence about letting her live.

After a few minutes, he meandered over to the balcony to observe her fight.  The man she was sparring with was twice her size.  She waited for him to lunge at her so she could grab his outstretched arm and flip up to get her legs around his neck.  She used her fully body weight to flip him onto the floor.  Once down, she pulled his arm upwards and used her legs to pull it out of the socket.  The man shouted in pain and struck at her with his free hand and kicked at the floor with his feet.  Harleen rolled off him and away.  The man lumbered to his feet and started for her again.  Harleen vaulted over him and sent him crashing headfirst into the stack of unassembled cardboard boxes that served as the edge of the arena.  Harleen cackled and dusted her hands on her pants before settling them on her waist and staring at the man who was struggling to get out of the boxes.

Joker descended the steps and approached, removing his shirt and heavy gold chains as he went.  Harleen smiled proudly at him as if to say, ‘look at what I did!  Aren’t you pleased with me?’  Joker stuck his tongue in his cheek as he rolled his neck and shoulders.  He stood about a yard away from her in the center of the ring.  Harleen seemed confused for a moment before the understanding kicked in.

“Am I getting on your nerves, Mistah J?”  She batted her lashes at him and smiled.  Joker bared his teeth at her.  He wanted her to make the first move, but it seemed she was going to be too busy trying to flirt.  He pulled three throwing knives from his belt and chucked them at her.  Two flew past close enough to whip her hair back.  The third cut her cheek.  A trickle of blood dripped down her cheek and she brought her hand up to touch it.  She examined the blood on her fingertips and growled before launching herself at him.

He was ready for her and caught her easily in his arms and flipped her onto her back.  The breath whooshed from her body and she gasped for air.  Joker chuckled. _Not so cocky now, are we, Doctor?_   Suddenly, Joker was staring at the ceiling and Harleen had her arm on his throat and her knee in his gut.  Joker closed his eyes for a second.  He took a slow breath.  Then mustered up his strength and hurled Harleen across the arena and into the cardboard boxes.

“I’m afraid you won’t beat me that easily, Harls.”  He told her.  She pulled herself from the boxes and winced.  Joker waited for her to get to her feet.  She wiped the heel of her hand against her cheek, smearing the blood into her hair.

“Maybe not, but I’ve only been doing this for a couple weeks now.”  She turned away from him and started to limp towards her bedroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?”  He called.  Harleen kicked a stack of boxes and knocked them over.  She didn’t stop or turn or show that she had heard him at all.  Joker growled and stormed after her, but she made it inside her bedroom and slammed the door on him before he could catch her.

He walked back to the arena where four of his henchmen were sitting.  He smiled his shark smile at them and pulled his favorite switchblade from his pocket.  The men jumped out of their seats and scrambled for the exit.

“Wait, wait, wait, Boss!  We got a guy you can cut up no problem!  Guy refused to pay his fees while you was in Arkham!  Frost’s got him tied up in the back room where we was holdin’ that pedo gym teacher guy.”  One of the men reasoned.  Joker honestly didn’t care who was under his blade as long as it was somebody.  And quick.

Two men ran to the back room and hurried back out dragging the aforementioned ‘guy’.  They flung him at Joker’s feet and fled.  The guy had been beaten up already, but the bruises had already started to heal.  His arms were tied behind his back so he used his knees to push himself into a sitting position.  When his eyes landed on the Joker, the blood drained from his face.

Joker grinned.  He knelt beside the guy and put his knife behind his ear.  Joker showed off his metal teeth and the guy looked like he might start crying.

“What’s your name?”

“Vincent Rowley.”  Joker nodded and patted Vincent’s shoulder with his free hand.

“Vincent, what do you call a man with no ears?”  Vincent shut his eyes and sobbed.  Joker groaned and rolled his eyes.  He grabbed the opposite ear in his fist to hold Vincent’s head steady while he sliced off the other one.  Joker picked up the dismembered ear and spoke into it.  “Is this thing on?”  He demanded while Vincent screamed in agony.  “You can call him anything you want, he can’t hear you!”  Joker chortled and tossed Vincent’s ear across the floor.  It landed with a wet thwap.  He turned back to his prey.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one,” he started.  He placed his knee in the center of Vincent’s chest and leaned on him until he was flat on his back.  Joker gripped his chin in his hand and set the blade at the edge of one of his eyes.  “A blind guy walks into a bar,” he used the knife to pry Vincent’s eye from its socket.  Over the screams, he continued, “and a chair, and a table, and the wall.”  He dug the other eye out for good measure.

“A blonde goes to the doctor and says, ‘Doctor, my whole body hurts.’  The doctor says, ‘Well show me where exactly it’s hurting.’  The blonde pokes her leg,” Joker shoved his knife into Vincent’s leg.  “’It hurts here.’  She pokes her arm,” Joker shoved the knife into Vincent’s arm. “’And here.’ She pokes her gut.”   Joker pushed his knife into Vincent’s stomach.  “’And here.’  The doctor grabs her hand, looks at it for a second and says, ‘You broke your finger.’”  Joker laughed at Vincent’s dying body.  Someone else giggled, too.  Joker looked across the factory and locked eyes on Harleen.

Evidently, she had heard Vincent’s screams and had come out to investigate the noise.  He wondered how long she had been standing there watching him.  She only seemed mildly disgusted at the sight of Vincent’s deformed body.  There was no small amount of blood and Joker was covered in it.

Harleen stopped laughing and began chewing on her upper lip.  Joker stood.  The knife was still clenched in his fist.  He whipped the knife at Vincent’s disfigured body.  It landed with a thud, the handle jutting from his chest.  Joker stepped over the corpse and marched toward Harleen.  He grabbed her face with both hands either to kiss her or put her head through the wall, he hadn’t decided.

She covered his hands with her own and looked at him with her clear blue eyes.  He smashed his mouth against hers.  She responded somewhat more hesitantly than usual.  He dropped his hands to her ass and pulled her up onto him.  She locked her ankles behind his back and let him carry her back into her bedroom.

He worked her sports bra over her head, freeing her breasts.  He released her mouth and she gulped in a lungful of air while he pulled a nipple between his teeth.  She groaned in his ear and worked his belt out of his pants.  He laid her back against the mattress to tug her athletic pants down her legs.  His fingers slid between her slick folds and his thumb massaged her swollen clitoris.  He released her nipple and molded his mouth against hers once more.

Joker shoved his slacks down and gripped his cock in his fist.  He wavered for a fraction of a second before shoving himself inside her.  _Holy shit she feels incredible._  She whimpered and moaned in his ear.

“Gimme a second, J.”  Joker stilled inside her.  It was too late for him.  He couldn’t stop himself now that he’d come this far.

“Can’t stop.”  He growled through his clenched teeth.  Harleen’s arms were around his shoulders, her legs around his hips.  She shook her head and rotated her hips a bit.  She hummed against his cheek.

“I don’t want you to stop, but I need a minute.  You’re just a bit,” she shifted again, “big.”  She nuzzled her nose against his neck, her breath sending goosebumps across his skin.  “Okay, Puddin’.”  Joker didn’t wait another second.  He couldn’t. He pulled back until he was almost completely out of her and slammed back inside.  She cried out, this time more from pleasure than pain.  He rocked against her hard.  Harleen set her teeth into his shoulder while he ravaged her.  She released him and threw her head back against the pillows as she came.  Her already tight pussy squeezed around his cock.  He pumped into her a few more time until he came inside her.

He rested his head against her chest for a few seconds longer then pulled out of her and rolled onto his back.  Harleen rolled toward him.  She should have known better.  He never stayed to cuddle.

Joker rolled off the bed and pulled his pants up.  Harleen gave him a wounded look that he ignored.  He walked to the door.  Stopped.  And turned back to look at her.  She saw him looking and pulled a sheet over herself, still shy after everything.

The skin he could see was covered with an array of cuts and bruises of different healing stages.  Blue bruises were shoved on top of yellowed ones.  Fresh cuts bisected scabs.  _Good.  It will sell the story she’s going to give tomorrow._

“We have an early day tomorrow.  Get yourself ready.”  Harleen licked her lips and nodded.  Joker shut the door behind him and punched the wall beside it.  That had definitely not been in his plans.


	12. Decided

Joker hadn’t slept.  He spent his time going over every inch of his plan.  Verifying and reverifying that every second was accounted for.  Making sure his underlings were prepared and knew their specific positions.  Checking his math and rechecking his explosives.  Before he knew it, the sun had risen and it was time for his final chess piece to be taken out, polished up, and set on the board.

Joker shoved the door open to her bedroom without knocking.  Her legs were wrapped in a tangle of sheets.  The t-shirt she had thrown on after Joker had left last night had ridden up to just under her breasts.  Joker’s attention was drawn down to the faded dolphin tattoo to the left of her pelvis.  Harleen sighed and rolled to her side.  The sheet slipped away to show her lacy, red panties hugging the curve of her ass.  Joker allowed himself a few seconds to watch her.

When his seconds were up, Joker grabbed a fistful of the sheets still wrapped around Harleen’s leg and pulled.  Harleen’s eyes snapped open while she slipped across the silky sheets and came tumbling onto the floor.  She barely managed to get her hands free to protect her face.  Joker prodded her leg with his foot.

“Wakey, wakey, Doctor.  It’s time for business.”  Harleen sat up and rubbed her neck, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

“Business?”  She asked.  Joker went to her closet and found the clothes she had been wearing the night of the escape shoved in the back.  Her coat hadn’t been washed, but the blue shirt and black pencil skirt were freshly laundered.  The skirt was ripped and frayed along the hem, but that was what he wanted.  He tossed the clothes at her.

“Get dressed.”  Joker didn’t wait for her to obey.  He headed back outside where a crowd of twenty-five of his underlings were waiting.  Twenty wore plastic clown masks over their faces, five wore their more eccentric masks; panda, the two shark heads, the goat, and fake Batman.  They all knew what to do.  Joker had made sure of that.  Obedient pawns on a chess board ready and willing to be used and sacrificed at the king’s whim.

“Gentlemen, good morning.  I hope you’ve all eaten your Wheaties and read your literature.  I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what is going to happen if any one of you fucks this up.”  Joker smiled and held his arms aloft.  “At the end of the day, always remember to have _fun_.”  Joker waved his hands at them.  “What’re you still doing here?  Go!”  The men scrambled into their predetermined squads and booked it out of the warehouse as quick as they could.  Amidst the scurrying underlings, Harleen meandered out of the bedroom.  She had even pulled her hair back into her messy ponytail.  All that was missing were her glasses that Joker had fiddled with.

“Where’s the fire?”  Harleen laughed once she got close enough to Joker.  Joker looked at her, sans smile, before finding his way up to his office.  He knew she’d follow.  She just couldn’t help herself at this point.  “Joker?”  She called rounding the corner and stepping through the threshold of his office.  Joker was pulling open the drawers of his desks looking for her glasses.  He knew he had put them away once he’d finished with them but he had moved so many things in the past twelve hours, he couldn’t remember which desk or which drawer he’d dropped them in.  He moved to the desk closest to the door, opened the drawer on the far right, and withdrew the thick, black rimmed spectacles.  Incidentally, this was the desk with the best view of Harleen’s bedroom door and the training grounds.  Not that that was important.  Not that that meant anything.

He pulled the temples out straight and gently and carefully pushed them onto Harleen’s face.  She gave him a small smile.  Her hand reached up to cover his but he pulled away before she could touch him.  Joker turned away and brought her attention to a map of Downtown Gotham.  He pointed to a small alley.

“This is where Frost is dropping you.”  Harleen’s brows knit together.  Joker slid his finger across the skinny line indicating the alley onto the main road.  He moved his finger up the road and stopped on a building about a half mile from the alley.  “This is where I need you to be when the police pick you up.”  Harleen pulled back.  Her mouth hung open while she tried to fill it with an argument.

“Police?”  She finally uttered.  Joker set his eyes back on the map.  He nodded more to himself than to her.

“You’ve been missing a month.  Kidnapped, rather.  And by _me_.”  Joker double checked his steps.  Small, white dots peppered the area.  Twenty-five white dots, to be exact.  All waiting for the signals.  “Police are going to have some questions.  Namely how you managed to survive.”  He heard Harleen drop herself onto his couch.

“And I can’t tell them it’s because we….”  She trailed off without finishing.  Joker was thankful for small mercies.  He wasn’t sure how he would have reacted if she had tried to explain to him exactly what they were.  What they did.  What _he_ did.

He walked over to stand in front of her.  “Tell them you used psychology on me.  Say that you are an exceptional psychologist.  Tell them you escaped by waiting until most of the mobsters were out.  Say I made sure you were beat every day.”  He touched the side of her cheek where a faint, blue bruise was just barely visible.  “You have the wounds to prove it.”  She still looked hesitant.  Joker rolled his eyes and walked back to his desk.

“Why can’t I just leave from here?”  Joker scoffed.  _Thought you had more sense than that, doc._

“We can’t risk you being picked up too soon and I don’t want them following any sort of trail you might leave back here.”  He looked out onto the vacant floor.  “This is one of my favorite safe houses, after all.”

“What do I do after the cops pick me up?  After I tell them my story, then what?”  Joker rolled his head around on his neck.  He turned back to her.

“Then nothing.  We only need you to misdirect the police.  Keep them momentarily occupied.  Me and my guys will take care of the rest.”  Harleen nodded.  Joker listened to the couch springs creak, her heels click on the floor for three steps.  She touched his bicep tentatively, when he didn’t move, she closed her hand around it and placed the other on his chest.

“Maybe later we can have a repeat performance of last night?”  Joker’s jaw was clenched so tightly he thought he might need another set of metal teeth put in.  She needed to stop touching him.  His mind had been made up.  But he could see the hesitation, the fear in her eyes.  If he denied her now, she could blow the whole plan.  She needed reassurance.  Or re-seduction as it were.  He took a breath and cleared his throat.  Turning to look at her, he gave her a slow smile.

“Perhaps we can make an entirely new show later, Harls.”  She smiled more confidently at him and giggled.  Joker tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear and cupped her bruised cheek in his hand.  A dangerous move he couldn’t resist.  He lived for danger.  _Ha ha_. 

A knock at the door made Joker drop his hand.  He looked over at the doorway where Frost stood in soldier position.  His hands held lightly behind his back and though his eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, Joker knew they were staring straight ahead.  Joker unrolled the sleeves of his shirt and buttoned the cuffs.  He put on his purple jacket making sure the collar stuck straight up and picked up his cane.

“Everything is ready?”  Frost nodded as Joker pushed past him.  Harleen was on his heels just like a puppy.  This would be the first time she had been outside consciously in a month.  Joker didn’t think the thought had even occurred to her.  She was perfectly content to be wherever he was and, for the last month, he was inside in hiding.

The sun was setting turning the sky into a violent shade of red.  _Fitting.  I plan on a_ lot _of people dying tonight._   A large, black van sat beside his baby.  The ostentatiously purple Lamborghini.  Harleen screeched and flew past him to the car.  She was practically salivating at the sight of the luxury sports car.

“Oh my god.  Oh my god.  Oh.  My.  _God_!”  She circled the car, eyes wide behind her glasses.  Joker could only nod.  It had been so long since he’d been behind the wheel.  He went to the driver’s side door and opened it.  Harleen looked at him excitedly and reached for the passenger side door’s handle.  Joker tsked and shook his finger at her.

“You are going with Frost.”  He pointed to the black van.  Harleen’s face fell.  She looked over her shoulder at the van and then skeptically over to Frost.  Her shoulders sagged as she let go of the Lamborghini and walked around to the passenger door on the van.  Joker shook his head again.  “Ah, ah, ah.”  Harleen looked through the windows at him.  He pointed to the back of the van.  “You have to hide in the back.  We can’t risk anybody seeing you before your check point.”  Harleen grumbled and moved to the back door.  Joker slid behind the wheel and shut his door.  Frost hurried to his own door and started the engine.  He waited until Frost pulled out and started down the road before turning over his own ignition.  “Goodbye, Harleen.”  He whispered before whipping the car onto the quickly darkening streets of Gotham.

* * *

 

“The other shoe dropped today in Gotham.  Twenty-nine days ago, criminal kingpin, The Joker, escaped from Arkham Asylum killing twenty-one people both employees and patients.  For the last four weeks, Gotham has held its collective breath waiting for The Joker’s next move.

“Today, the Joker and several of his gang members robbed Gotham Federal Bank and blew up Gotham Preparatory Academy.  We are unsure of the Clown Prince’s motives for levelling Gotham’s prestigious school, but fortunately the building was mostly empty for the night.  Two janitors lost their lives in the explosion.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Gotham Federal Bank.  The bank has been a prime target for many of Gotham’s unsavory citizens.  As a precaution, the bank employs more than thirty guards on rotating shifts with ten guards at each shift.  The Joker and his crew chose to strike at shift change.  None of the nineteen guards in the building made it out alive.

Tonight, the hospitals are filled with bystanders caught in the crossfire and many members of the Joker’s gang themselves.  I’m Vickie Vale for Gotham City News saying, be safe, Gotham.  Good night.”  Joker smiled and turned off the television to focus on his computer.  He clicked on an audio file and played it back.

“Miss Quinzel?”  A man asked.  He spoke with the attitude and authority all GCPD officers had.  The tone that made Joker want to rip their throats out with his teeth and shove acid up their asses.

“….”

“Harleen Quinzel?  Ain’t you Doctor Harleen Quinzel from Arkham?”  He continued.

“Yes.”  Harleen whispered.

“I thought the Joker got you.”

“Yes.”  Harleen whispered again.  Her voice trembled a bit.  _I gotta say, that’s some A-plus acting there, doc._

“Jesus, you need a doctor.”

“I _am_ a doctor.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean a medical doctor.  C’mon, I’ll take ya to the hospital and get ya checked out.”  Car doors opened and closed.

“Man, I gotta say, I _really_ thought that clown had killed ya.”

“….”

“Name’s Brady, by the way.  Officer Shawn Brady.”

“….”  Officer Brady cleared his throat.

“So how’d you escape, anyways?”

“Waited.”  Harleen’s voice was hard and emotionless.  He supposed she was drawing from her past traumas for inspiration.

“Right, but-”

“I’m tired.”  There was another minute of static before the file ended.  There were three more waiting in the wings for Joker’s listening pleasure, but he was content that she hadn’t betrayed his confidence.  It was time for him to regain the normalcy of his life.  The first step to that was to move to a new safe house.  Harleen might have been in the back of the van with barely a glimpse of the outside of the warehouse, but that was more than enough information for the clever little minx to hunt him down.

He had Frost setting up another safe house across the river at that very moment.  Hopefully Harleen was kept preoccupied for a few more days.  _I suppose I could have someone keep tabs on her for a while.  Someone that could give me a heads up before she tried tracking me down._ Joker pulled his walkie from his belt and flipped it on.

“Meat Head, come in, Meat Head.”  He called into it.

“Yeah, Boss?”  Meat Head responded immediately.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, Boss.”  Meat Head was small and unassuming.  The perfect guy to keep tabs on a girl already under the watchful eye of the GCPD.  Nobody ever suspected him.

“You’re going to go keep an eye on Doctor Quinzel.  Tell me every time she leaves her apartment and where she goes.”  Meat Head was quiet for a beat.

“Roger that, Boss, I’ll get right on it.”  Joker snapped the walkie back onto his belt and dropped onto his couch.  _Of course you will.  You never had a choice._

 


	13. Your Voice

Joker was cleaning his gun for the umpteenth time that day.  He needed to keep his hands busy even while he occupied his mind elsewhere.  Earbuds were wedged in his ears and attached to his laptop where live audio from Harleen Quinzel was streaming.  He had it set to record and save every ten minutes of audio in separate files so that in the hours that she was sleeping, he could still listen to her.

It was just to keep tabs on her.  To make sure she didn’t give away too much information.  Information that, in the wrong hands, could lead to a very messy situation for the Joker.  At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.  Every time he pressed the earbuds into his ears and hit play on her audio feed, Joker told himself the same thing.  It was all to make sure that the right information didn’t get into the wrong hands.

That information is why Frost continued to pester Joker about moving safe houses.  Frost had set up a similar safe house for him clear on the other side of Gotham near Oswald Cobblepot’s hang outs.  Joker declined.  He told Frost that the safe house was so close to the Iceberg Lounge that e would be too chilly to work.  Frost set up another safe house after that and Joker declined Frost’s urging to move.

He couldn’t be certain why he felt the need to take such a big risk.  Why he couldn’t stop himself from taking long, slow walks around the perimeter.  Why he didn’t take Frost’s advice and switch safe houses.  Something that he usually did immediately after pulling a job.  The niggling answers were at the back of his head.  He refused to bring them to the surface.  To give them any credence whatsoever.

So he cleaned his gun.  Again and again and when it was clean, he would pop in a clip and fire at the nearest target until the clip was empty and cleaned it again.  His men had started stealing mannequins from department stores to set up on the warehouse floor.  Anything to lower the body count.

Joker’s hands stilled on his gun, his barrel brush still held in his hand.  Harleen yelped in surprise and a new voice spoke.  New to the audio files, but old to the Joker.  His favorite voice.  The low, raspy timbre that sent goosebumps down Joker’s arms and made his green hair stand on end.

“Doctor Quinzel, I think it’s time you and I had a talk.”

“I agree.  Would you like to make an appointment?  Maybe you could swing by Arkham and we can get you the help you so desperately need.”

“I’m not here about me.”

“Yes.  Yes, you are.  You just don’t know it.”

“You were held captive by the Joker for a month.  You told the police you didn’t know anything.  I think you do.”

“Why do you think you are so obsessed with the Joker?”

“He is a cancer plaguing this city.  I aim to take him down.”

“So you say, but do you know _how_ doctors treat cancer?”

“What does this have to do with-”

“They kill it, Batman.  They kill the cancer cells to allow healthy cells to grow in their place.  But you won’t kill him, Batman, no.  Because it isn’t a cure that you want.  Remission would be _boring_ for you.  It’s the thrill of the fight that you’re all about.”

“You are playing a dangerous game, Doctor Quinzel.”

“So are you, Batman.  You don’t hate the chaos the Joker brings.  You love it.  It makes you feel like you have a purpose.  The criminal kingpins of Gotham make you feel alive.  Fighting them makes you feel like maybe when you die people will remember who you are.

“But the truth is, when you die, this city will sink right back into its criminal ways with nobody to pretend like they want to save them when all they’re really looking for is a fight.”

“We’re done here.”

“You need help, Batman.  Professional help.”  Joker knew the Bats was already gone.  Harleen’s take on Batman’s psychopathy was refreshing.  It reminded him why he had taken such a shining to her back in Arkham.  Joker blinked himself out of his daze.  He pulled his earbuds out and tossed them onto the laptop keyboard.  He then became incredibly aware of someone standing not three feet to his right.

Joker snapped the clip into his gun and pointed it at the intruder.  He stuck his tongue in his cheek as he regarded Frost.  His gun was still aimed at the large man’s chest.  Frost cleared his throat and tried to bring the color back into his cheeks.

“What do you want?”  Joker demanded.  He sighed and dropped his gun.  He set it on the desk in front of him and grabbed the nearly empty bottle of vodka and drained the last of it.  H slammed the empty bottle back on the desk and looked back at Frost with bloodshot eyes.  He hadn’t eaten real food or slept since the day before he kicked Harleen out.

“You said Phase two was going down ten days after our first attack.”  Joker growled, pulling himself out of his chair.  He stumbled over to his liquor cabinet and procured one of two remaining bottles.  Joker squinted at the label.  _Good ol’ Tennessee whiskey_.  He pulled the cork out and took a swig from the bottle as he sat back down.

“Why are you in here telling me what I said?”  Frost swallowed and his mouth worked up and down nervously.

“Because, Boss, it will have been ten days tomorrow.”  Joker rubbed the heel of his hand into his left eye and scratched his head.

“Ten days?” _Ten days without sleep.  No wonder I feel like garbage._   “Where are the men?”

“Down stairs, Boss.  I rounded them up just in case.”  Joker narrowed his eyes at Frost.

“’Just in case?’  What the hell do you mean by that?”  Frost opened his mouth to speak.  Joker took another swig of whiskey before getting to his feet and trudging to the office window to look down at his worker bees.

“I only meant that maybe you had reconsidered Phase Two and had decided to go a different route.”  Joker returned to his desk and picked up his gun.  Frost took a half step backwards.  Joker looked at him from the corner of his eye and smirked.

“Fancy a bullet, Jonny Boy?”  Frost cleared his throat and gave a minute shake of his head.

“No need for that, Boss.  I was only trying to help.”  Joker belched and scratched his head.

“A’right.  Time to get these bozos saddled up.”  He stuffed his gun into his holster and walked out onto the balcony.  He put to fingers in his mouth and whistled.  The noise died instantly.  The thirty men on the floor all looked up at him.

“Tomorrow morning at six a.m. a shipment truck is set to deliver medical supplies to Wayne Memorial.  And because we blew up the school, construction on Eighteenth Street will cause the truck to detour three blocks out of the way and take Twenty-Second Street.  You lot will ambush the truck.”  Joker continued laying out his plan to his carefully listening audience.  His head was killing him.  He needed a bit of blow to relax him.  He finished his speech and hurried back into his office to get a hit.

“Take the truck to Zomo’s.  He’ll make sure the goods get where they need to be.  And stop by Simon’s after.  Let him know Zomo is going to be dropping supplies by and pick up the money.”  Joker leaned back in his chair and picked up his earbuds.  Frost started to say something, shook his head, and left to do what Joker commanded.

Some rom-com was playing in the background on the audio.  Harleen was talking to herself over the sound of the movie.  Joker dug through his desk drawers for a bit while she rambled and successfully withdrew a bottle of oxycodone.  He shook out three of the pills and swallowed them with a mouthful of whiskey.

“What the fuck are _you_ doing in my apartment?”  Joker had never heard her speak so harshly before.  He wished he could’ve installed a camera in the glasses along with the audio.

“Well, really, Harleen.  A Gotham City cop comes to my door and tells me my daughter is missing and presumed dead.  Then I see on the news that you _aren’t_ dead.”  The woman scoffed.  “Had to come see for myself.”

“Put that out.”

“Calm down, Leeny, it’s medicinal.”

“What the fuck were you thinking bringing her here?  And since _when_ have you even been talking to her?” 

Another voice Joker recognized as her sister spoke.

“When I thought you were dead, I had to talk to her.  I was going to get kicked out of the apartment.  There was no way I would’ve been able to pay for the place and go to school.”

“You’re a smart girl, sissy.  You could’ve figured something else out.”

“I’m not that smart, Leeny.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Leeny, I….”

“What?”

“I dropped out.”

“You what?”

“I dropped outta high school.”

“You _what_?”

“I knew you’d get mad.  This is why I didn’t wanna tell ya.”

“Mad?  Sissy, we had a deal.”

“I know.”

“When did you drop out?  Maybe you can explain the situation and get back in.”

“About four months ago.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Leeny, please.  I’ve been so worried about you and believe it or not, Momma’s been worried too.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s just pissed about not being able to cash in my life insurance.”

“Yeah, well, if ya’d waited another week to make you’re grand escape, maybe your sister n’ I wouldn’t have to worry about keepin’ the roof over our heads.”

“Oh shove it, ma.”

“Don’t you talk to me like that, Harleen!  Ya may be grown, but I’ll still beat the shit outta ya!”

“Oh, try it, ma.  I fought bigger n’ scarier’n you for fun.”

“Ungrateful child.”

“Worthless mother.”

“Please, guys, let’s not fight.”

“I want you both out.  I want you both to leave.  Now.”

“Leeny-”

“Now!”

Joker didn’t think Harleen could bear to raise her voice at her baby sister.  As long as he’d known her, she’d put the girl on a pedestal.  She doted on her and the sister seemed to dote on Harleen right back.  He made a mental note to get information on the little sister.  Figure out why she dropped out of school and maybe kill the mother.

Joker yanked the earbuds from his ears when the sobbing started.  He hated the sound of crying, but her tears had a unique effect on him.  While most crying gave Joker a headache, Harleen’s sobs made his chest tighten and his mouth grow dry.  _It’s just a side effect from the Oxy_.  He told himself, but his excuses were becoming more and more difficult to create let alone believe.

He could have killed her a hundred times over and he passed each moment by without batting an eye.  By all rights, she should have been long dead.  Nothing but a plot in the ground.  So why was he pulling the earbuds back into his hands?  Why was he continuing to listen to the inane conversations of a stupid little blonde woman with a stupid name and a stupid, trusting nature?

 _It’s nothing.  Just sheer curiosity.  It means nothing_.  _If I ever see her again, I’ll put a bullet in her brain myself._


	14. Distract

Maybe it was the alcohol.  Maybe it was the cocaine.  Maybe it was the oxycodone.  Maybe it was a mix of all three.  But sometime around two a.m. Joker fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.  He woke up to the sound of Frost’s heavy footsteps on the metal stairs leading up to his office.  Joker pushed his fingers into his eyes and shook himself like a dog after a bath.

“Mornin’, Boss.  We’re all geared up and ready to head out.”  Frost announced.  Joker hauled himself out of his chair.  His glock was still secured in his shoulder holster, but for all he had planned, it wasn’t going to be enough.

He went to his arms cache and began stuffing his pockets with laughing gas bombs and grenades.  He tucked six throwing knives up each shirt sleeve and pinned his acid spitting flower onto his lapel right over his heart.  In the pocket on his silver suit jacket he stowed his beloved butterfly knife.  He bent at the waist and lifted his pant leg so he could secure an ankle holster complete with a .9 millimeter to his ankle.  He lifted the other one and strapped six more knives around his calf.

When he was finished, he stood and rolled his head around his shoulders to crack his stiff neck.  Frost waited patiently by the door watching Joker assemble his arms.  Joker pushed past Frost and went down the stairs to the main floor.  The men grew quiet as they watched him approach.

Without stopping, Joker shouted for them to get to work and continued outside to his flashy purple Lamborghini.  His men had the easy job.  All they had to do was steal a narcotics truck.  Sure, it was going to bring in a lot of money for him, but the real tricky part was distracting the Batman.

Tricky, yes.  Would Joker rather use more of his cronies to do the distracting?  Hell no.  Fighting the Bat was the best part of his day.  He knew that good ol’ Batsy felt the same about him.  Why else would he always drop everything to run and meet him for a duel?  And besides, fighting Batman was the perfect way to distract himself from a particularly alluring blonde.

Joker looked at his watch.  It was five ten in the morning.  Batman was probably ready to turn in for the day, but winter in Gotham usually pushed dawn back a few hours so the sun wouldn’t rise for another hour and a half.  Which meant that if Joker caused a big enough commotion, the Dark Knight would pop out of his hidey hole ready for a tumble.

He pressed a button and the Lambo growled to life.  Joker put it in first and gunned it out of the dirt patch that served as the safe house’s parking lot.  In his rear view mirror he could see Frost getting the men into trucks just before Joker turned a corner, barely missing a cement truck, and began tearing up the streets to attract the Bat’s attention.

Joker thought he would have had to make more of a fuss to get the big ol’ Bat’s attention.  It must have been a slow night because Batman was on his tail no more than ten minutes out.  The rumbling engine of the Batmobile snarled as it whipped around the corner hot on Joker’s tail.  Joker laughed merrily.  He sped towards the bridge connecting uptown Gotham with the Ratways.  When he reached the middle of the bridge, he slammed his foot on the brakes and spun the Lamborghini in a graceful, arching one-eighty.

Batman slammed his brakes in kind, but remained facing the flashy purple Lamborghini.  Joker cackled and revved his engine.  Batman was invisible behind the thick, dark glass and armor of his stealth vehicle.  Joker decided to pretend that the front end of his car was his face.  The headlights were his eyes.  The grill was his stern mouth.  The windshield was his enormous forehead.  The thought had Joker rolling and stomping the gas.

He was speeding towards the Batmobile with unfettered glee.  Batman jammed his car into reverse and backed away at a surprisingly high speed.  _It’s my turn to be the cat, Bat_!  Joker thought.  Or maybe he had said it out loud.  No one was there to say for sure.  Whichever it was, Joker was growing tired of the chase.  He wanted to hit something. 

 _And damage this flawless and beautiful piece of elegant machinery?_   Joker shook his head.  That wasn’t his voice.  He wouldn’t think twice about an easily replaceable thing.  Joker barely thought twice about anything except….

“Harleen….” Joker growled.  She was still in his head after everything he’d done to rid himself of her.  It was impossible.

The Batmobile was gone.  Joker’s hands clenched on the steering wheel.  How had he lost sight of it?  He stopped the Lamborghini in the middle of the street and looked around.  The black of the Batmobile would undoubtedly stand out against the light of day.  _Light of day_?  Joker looked over to the horizon.  The sun was climbing higher in the sky.  The Bat had fled to fight another night.  He had left Joker in the middle of a car chase and he hadn’t even gotten a punch in!

He slammed his fists against the steering wheel and screamed in frustration.  Traffic was backing up behind him.  Commuters on their way to work.  Joker pulled a spare gun from his glove box and climbed out of his car.  For some reason, Batman thought it was okay to leave Joker be just because the sun had come up.  He fired the gun until the clip was empty.

Twelve cars blocked traffic after Joker drove away.  Twelve dead drivers that seatbelts did nothing to save.  Twelve new holes in the ground.  Twelve reminders to the Bat that he was not someone to be trifled with.

 

He didn’t go back to the safe house.  He didn’t trust himself in a place where he had such easy access to Harleen.  He was a junky and the sexy, blonde therapist was his drug.  He needed to quit cold turkey.  Unlike his other drugs, his _real_ drugs, Harleen was affecting him in unexpected ways.  Changing his decisions without even being in the same room.

He pulled the Lambo into an underground garage in Uptown Gotham.  Not even Frost knew about this hideout.  Joker tossed himself onto the dust covered couch and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

After a few minutes, he dropped his hands and looked around.  The only source of light was the sun streaming through dirt covered windows.  The hideaway sat above an antiques store and the apartment was thought to be uninhabitable.  Asbestos, dry rot, tales of hauntings nobody had the nerve to ascend the rickety stairs hanging off the back of the building to check.

The owners of the antiques store leased the storefront from an elderly man named Escroc.  One of Joker’s aliases.  It was leased on a six-month term.  The owners wrote a check to Mr. Escroc and mailed it to a P.O. Box with no return address.  Joker would send one of the errand boys to collect his things from the box and cash the check under the pseudo identity, Escroc.  The cash would be returned to Joker.

It was the first place Joker had ever bought.  Before he had assembled his crew or taken over the old cartel.  He had just come out of the muck and killed some swanky rich folks nearby and robbed them blind.  He was fleeing the scene when he passed the building and saw the for sale sign.  He took cover inside the abandoned building and gave it a thorough once over while he was at it.  A few days later, he bought the place outright under the alias and started looking at the big picture.

The entire east wall was covered in a map of Gotham along with his first laid plans to assume dominance in Gotham.  To set himself up as the most feared tyrant in the world.  The words _LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE AND FOCUS ON THE LITTLE DETAILS_ was spray painted on the north wall.  A porcelain clown doll lay on its side in front of the wall.  One side of its face was cracked and had been cracked long before Joker had shown up.

He had assumed it was a toy of a child that once lived here.  The doll had been his sign.  Joker had always had a fascination with clowns.  Even before the vat.  They were unsettling despite being created for joy.  Joker decided to feed off the strange blend of emotions derived from them.  He became a clown first.  Then, The Clown Prince of Crime.  And then the King.

And out of the blue, some nameless useless bag of blonde hair, blue eyes, long legs, and big tits comes strolling in and threatening everything he had worked for.

The Joker had crawled into the filth and stench that thrived at the bottom of Gotham and then clawed his way to the top all over again.  He had created an empire of blood and sweat and chaos.  He was living his best life.  He did what he wanted when he wanted and there was nobody he had to answer to.  Not even the Bat despite what he may think.

Batman was an added bonus in his kinghood.  A plaything to spend his free time batting around and being batted around by.  Someone as sick and depraved as Joker himself with half the ease of knowing they are doing it all because they are insane.

Joker’s life revolved around fun and chaos.  And, of course, fun derived from chaos.  Until Dr. Harleen Quinzel walked into that therapy room in Arkham.  Walked into his mind like she lived there and wouldn’t leave.  He had done everything save setting the damn place ablaze to get rid of her and she just wouldn’t leave.

In his mind she was still under him.  He was still inside her and she was desperate and needy.  Craving him.  Craving his touch.  His kiss.  His cock.  He slammed his hands back into his eyes and let out a growly, animalistic scream.  It echoed through the empty rooms of the apartment.

Joker jumped up from the couch and dug into the cabinets in the kitchen until he found his stash of Absinth.

When the bottle was gone, he slept.

And Harleen was there.


	15. Coming Out of My Cage

For two weeks, Joker had little contact with the outside world.  He gave his crew orders through phone calls and text messages.  He hardly left the decrepit apartment aside from driving across town to pick up liquor, drugs, or clothing.  The plumbing still worked only because of the ancient construction which meant he could shower.  Although he still forwent the chore most days.  He didn’t see the point.  Instead, he waited until his lime green hair was plastered to his head with grease and he couldn’t stand the stench of his own body odor before cranking the rusty nozzles of the dilapidated shower and waiting the forty-five seconds for the water to gurgle up through the pipes.  And another minute and a half before the water ran clear enough to serve its purpose.

Fortunately, Joker chose to shower that day.  He stripped his wrinkled gray pants from his body.  He wasn’t sure when he had last changed his clothes.  He had gotten a week’s worth of clothing from his tailor, but he had only used two new pairs of pants so far.  He hadn’t worn a shirt in what seemed like an eternity.  He preferred it.  Shirts were for formal occasions.  Or nights of debauchery.

The cold water hit Joker like chunks of ice in a hail storm.  The water was always cold.  The water heater was stored in the basement of the building three floors down and was on its last leg.  It couldn’t chug out enough warm water for a cup of tea let alone a hot shower.  Though Joker found he preferred it this way.  The frigid waters purged the unruly thoughts running rampant through his mind and left him better able to concentrate on what was truly important.  Chaos and Gotham.  And bringing these two wayward lovebirds together in holy Batrimony.

Joker squelched the excess water from his newly washed hair and turned the water off.  It took a little more than five seconds for the pipes to get the message, but by that time Joker was already toweling off and striding butt naked across the apartment to the wardrobe and withdrawing a soft, maroon button down and shiny silver slacks with their matching jacket.

He was not intending on going anywhere.  At least not yet.  Not tonight.  He was here for a reason and he had been getting so much work done.  The thought of getting dressed appealed to him in some other way.  It was almost a mindless activity he performed without thinking.  He fixed his shoulder holster over his maroon shirt and pulled the suit jacket on over the top.  Satisfied with his ensemble, he sat at his desk and stared down at the rubber chicken he had been attempting to turn into a proximity bomb.

The bomb part was easy of course.  Child’s play for Joker.  But he wanted it to cluck before it went off.  He wanted the last sound its victims ever heard to be of a chicken bacawking their final demise.  Because how humiliating would that be?  You wind up in the afterlife and some other dead schmuck asks how you died and you have to tell them that you heard a cluck cluck here and a cluck cluck there and then BOOM!  Joker cackled to himself as he toyed with the wiring on the sensors.

The only source of electricity was an orange extension cord run through the floor into a hidden outlet in the back of the antique store.  Joker used it to power two flood lights that filled the apartment with light.  He had drawn black out curtains over the windows to ensure that nobody got the idea that anybody was living there.  He read and plotted and tinkered and made sketches of his elaborate contraptions meant to kill or maim the Bat and anyone else stupid enough to wander into his territory.

After those two weeks, Joker genuinely forgot why he was holed up away from his men and civilization.  It was almost like he was back in Arkham Asylum all over again.  Only here, he didn’t have to work so hard to get drugs and liquor or go to that dreaded therapy.  Although the doctor….  That was it.  He was here to clear his mind of Harleen.  To get away from her and her influence.  It had almost worked.

Joker snarled and stomped downstairs and into the underground garage.  It was long past closing time.  The sky was dark.  Heavy clouds blotted out any stars or sliver of moon that might shed light on this dark and godforsaken city.  Joker wasn’t sure on his destination as he pulled onto the street.  His mind was somewhere outside the car and he wasn’t sure where that was.

Less than ten minutes later he pulled to a stop in front of her apartment.  He shut off the car and sat staring up at her window.  The lights were off and Joker knew she was probably asleep.  Joker squeezed the steering wheel between his hands until his knuckles screamed.  There was a decision to be made.  _No.  Not a decision.  You don’t have a choice.  You need to take her out now._

Joker pulled his gun from his shoulder holster and popped the clip out.  It was full.  Of course it was.  He hadn’t killed anybody since the traffic jam.  He snapped the clip back in the gun and cocked it.  He stowed it back in the holster.  _Get out of the fucking car, go up to her apartment, ring the bell and shoot her in the face when she answers the door._

It had been weeks since he’d seen her and still just thinking of her face brought it to the forefront of his mind.  The heavy lidded blue eyes hidden beneath those gaudy frames.  The curve of her lips as she laughed at something he’d said.  The way her nose scrunched up when she found something really hilarious.  Her tongue slipping out and dampening her pale pink lips.

Joker opened the door and got out.  His chest was unusually tight.  His stomach in what could only be described as knots the whole time he waited in the elevator for her floor.  To distract himself, he focused on the architecture of the building.  It was old and partially falling apart.  _Odd.  She_ is _a doctor.  She should be getting paid enough money to get herself a decent apartment_.  Joker had never seen her apartment before.  He knew where she was from the file he had on her from Arkham.  He remembered thinking it was odd to rent an apartment in this district on her salary, but figured she simply wanted to be closer to work.

Joker’s focus returned to the task at hand as he stood outside her door.  He stared at the numbers on the door.  Four one three.  The three had peeled off a bit so it could almost look like an eight, but there were only four apartments on this floor.  Joker knocked.  He heard bustling inside the apartment and figured she most likely didn’t hear him.  He knocked more firmly.

“Go away!  I ain’t got nothin’ ta say ta ya!”  Harleen hollered.  A pan clattered and he heard her curse.  Joker found himself smiling.  He knocked again.  “Listen.  If this is my mother or my sister, go away.  There is nothin’ either one of ya is gonna say that’ll make me change my mind.  An’ if yer some schmuck comin’ ta peddle me wares or somethin’ get lost ‘cause I ain’t interested!”  Joker pulled his lock picks from his pocket and dealt with the door.  She was in the kitchen attempting to cook and didn’t hear the door open and shut behind him.  He walked carefully and quietly into her apartment. 

The kitchen was mostly secluded.  Only one narrow archway connected it to the living room.  Joker looked around her apartment.  It was smaller than he imagined somehow.  A lumpy, brown couch was shoved up against the wall between the living room and the kitchen and a small, static filled television sat on a dresser against the opposite wall.

The news was playing quietly.  The newscasters’ voices were grainy and distant.  The coffee table was littered with month old magazines and old take out containers.  Joker let his curiosity lead him into the bedroom.

A small, full size bed was wedged into the corner with a navy blue bedspread.  He heard her humming in the kitchen.  Some illegible song punctuated by her curses.  Joker was about to leave when he noticed several pieces of paper sticking out of the drawer on her nightstand and preventing it from closing.

He pulled the drawer open and grabbed the stack of papers only to find that they weren’t really papers at all.  The majority were newspaper clippings of him and his escapades.  Several were candid photos of him.  Most were from Arkham, but some of the other ones were from nights he was at the clubs.  He wondered where she had gotten them.

He became so preoccupied with her collection that he didn’t notice when she stopped singing.  He dropped the photographs on her bed and listened.  She was trying to sneak across the living room floor.  Joker set his hand on his gun keeping it in its holster until the right moment.

“I don’t know what you think you’re gonna find in here, but I promise I’m just as broke as the rest of the cretins livin’ in this dump.”  Her voice got louder as she edged closer to the door.  “So why don’t ya do me a favor and leave now before I have ta kill ya, Mister….”  Her breath hitched when she saw him.  Joker swallowed and turned to face her with his best Show Smile.  “J.”  She whispered.

Her hair was a mess.  It was piled up in a bun at the top of her head.  He was surprised to see that she was still well groomed and hadn’t slipped back into her old habits after being abandoned by him.  She was wearing the same shirt she had left in.  His favorite shirt of hers.  The dark blue that made her eyes look the color of a stormy sea.  The epitome of chaos and terror.  In exchange for the tight, black pencil skirt, she wore a pair of impossibly tighter black pants with matching black pumps.  He wondered if she had had to have someone sew her into those pants like Olivia Newton-John in _Grease_.

“Hey, doll, ya miss me?”  He grinned.  Harleen dropped the bat that was clutched in her hands and flung her arms around him.  _Kill her!  Kill her now! Kill her now, now NOW!_

“I thought you’d forgotten about me!”  She cried.  Joker relished the way her body felt pressed against his.  He could nearly forgive himself for being so senseless.  Almost.

Joker grabbed her by the arms and pushed her away.  He looked down at her sternly.  Her glasses had slipped down her nose so her wide eyes stared up at him unencumbered.  The eyes that haunted him in his dreams and waking life alike.  The eyes he couldn’t get rid of.

“You mean after I sent you to the police to lie about all the time you spent with me while I bombed a school?”  Harleen titled her head the way she always did when she was analyzing something he’d said.  “To be honest,” he continued as he began to walk in slow circles around her, “I was going to have my men kill you.  Loose ends and all that, you understand.  But I heard your fabulous performance and couldn’t bear to rid this world of such a talent.”  He pulled the rubber band from her hair and watched it fall in soft tendrils down her back and over her shoulders.  “More talent than I gave you credit for to be honest.  So I said, what the hell?  So long as she doesn’t change her story and try to confess, I’ll let her live.”  Joker stood in front of Harleen again.  He picked up a candid photograph of him from the club and held it up.

“Then I find out you have been snooping around in my affairs.  Taking pictures of me in my establishments.”  Joker shook his finger at her and tsked.  “That’s bad, Harleen.  Very bad.  The kind of bad that means I can’t let you live anymore.”  Joker crumpled his face into a pseudo pout for a second.  Harleen had started backing away.

Joker pulled his gun from his holster and held it to her face.  Harleen shut her eyes with a measure of calm.  Joker watched in fascination.  Never certain what she was going to do next.  Harleen opened her eyes and trapped Joker under them.

“If you are going to kill me, can I at least have a last request?”  Joker tilted the gun in a way that indicated for her to proceed.  “I want you to kiss me.  One last time.  I want my last memory to be of your lips on mine.”  The simple request knocked the air out of Joker’s lungs. 

He let the gun fall to his side and slid his free hand over her cheek and into her hair.  He pulled her face to his and pressed his lips against hers.  She was so much sweeter than he remembered.  Her tongue tickled his own as they parted their lips and deepened the kiss.  Joker wrapped his arm around her waist and held her against him.  He pressed his swiftly growing erection against her belly.

He had come here to kill her and he was seconds from tearing her out of her pants and fucking her here and now in this filthy, fleabag apartment.  Joker knew he needed to stop, but he couldn’t help himself.  She felt so nice and tasted so good.  It was a feeling he never wanted to lose.

Joker pried himself away from Harleen.  Harleen stared at him in confusion and apprehension.  Her pink lips were smeared with the garish red lipstick he wore making her look like a messy vampire. 

He didn’t speak.  Couldn’t speak.  But he also couldn’t stay here with her. Joker marched to the door and left.  He took the stairs this time.  There was no way he could handle standing still.  The cold winter breeze of Gotham brought relief as it flooded Joker’s lungs.  He climbed into the purple Lamborghini and sped away as quickly as he could.

But not fast enough.  And not far enough.


	16. Where We Fell

Joker was nearly at the bridge where he had shot the twelve commuters two weeks prior.  He needed a way to kill the doctor that wouldn’t lead his libido to interfering.  He considered getting a long range rifle and taking her out from three or four rooftops away, but he’d never been much of a sharp shooter.  No.  Knives and fists were more his style.  More personal.  But this kill couldn’t be personal because it _was_ personal.  Too personal.

He could always hire somebody else.  But he couldn’t bear to give anyone else the satisfaction.  No.  Every satisfaction Harleen Quinzel had to give in this world belonged to the Joker.  Nobody else was good enough.  He needed to kill her from a distance, but couldn’t snipe worth a damn.  He wanted her death to be quick and painless, but also he wanted her to know it was him.

He sighed at the conundrum he’d locked himself into and glanced to his left out the window.  He took a double take and saw Harleen on a motorcycle driving beside him.  Joker groaned and put his hand up to block her from his sight.  He left to clear his mind of _her_.  Didn’t she understand that?

 _Apparently not._   Joker thought grimly as he watched her pull ahead of him and race towards the stopped traffic up ahead.  About a hundred yards from the edge of traffic, Harleen leapt from the seat and pulled the bike onto its side.  Together, they slid eighty or ninety yards.  Sparks leapt up from the pavement as the metal scraped against it before the bike came to a stop.

Harleen climbed off the wrecked bike and stomped toward Joker’s oncoming car.  _This is it_.  Joker thought.  _My perfect opportunity.  Ah, Harls, you really_ do _understand_! _It will almost be a pity to kill you_.  Joker pulled his foot off the gas and stomped the brake pedal.

The Lamborghini screeched to a halt barely an inch from her.  Joker stared at her through the window.  “You, you, you, you pain in the ass.”  He berated through the window.  He was certain she hadn’t heard him, but she slammed her hands down on the hood of the Lamborghini anyway.

“You’re not leaving me.  You’re _not_ leaving me!”  She screamed.  Joker sighed and got out of the car.  He should have run her over when he had the chance.  _Why didn’t I run her over_?

“I have done everything you asked.  Every test, every trial, every initiation.  I have proved I love you.  Just _accept_ it.”  Joker rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in mocked surrender.  _Love_?

“Got it got it got it.”  _Love a murderer?  A psycho?_  A semi-truck pulled to a stop behind them.  “ _I_ am not someone who is ‘loved’.”  He noted her glossed over expression.  He clapped his hands in front of her face to make her focus on his words.  “I’m an idea.”  He twinkled his fingers around his face.  The tune of _Spongebob Squarepants_ popped into his head and he dismissed it.  “A state of mind.”  He said more seriously.  The truck driver honked noisily behind them.  Joker wanted to make sure Harleen heard him clearly.  He raised his voice.  “I execute _my_ will according to _my_ plan and you, doctor,” he thought the words in the same moment he spoke them, “are not part of my plan.”  Harleen cupped his face between her hands.

“Just let me in.” Joker pulled away and looked at the trucker through the windshield.  Clearly, he had been raised in a cave because he didn’t seem to have any idea who he had stumbled across on this auspicious night.  “I promise I won’t hurt you!”  _Promises?_   The notion made Joker laugh.  _We aren’t sharing secrets in the asylum anymore, doctor.  Out in the real world promises mean nothing._

“Oh, promise?  You promise?”  Joker sneered.  Harleen was fighting tears and he hated the way the sight made his throat tighten.

“Hey, Dickless!”  The cave-dwelling trucker hollered.  “Mind screamin’ at your bitch someplace else?”  Harleen grabbed the gun from his holster.  Joker turned to issue the moron a warning in the same moment Harleen fired the bullet in the chamber from earlier.  She struck him right between the eyes in what had to be the most beautiful shot she’d ever made.

“I was gonna say, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you’.”  Joker told the corpse with a shrug.  He turned back to deal with the situation at hand.

Harleen still had his gun clenched in her hand.  Her aim had moved only a fraction of an inch from the trucker to Joker.  _If you can’t kiss me, you’ll kill me.  Is that it, doctor?_   Joker ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth and leaned his forehead against the barrel of the gun, still warm from being fired.

“Don’t hurt me.”  Joker whined.  “I’ll be your friend.”  He smiled.  She didn’t.  Joker felt irritation twitch in his jaw.  “Do it.  C’mon.  Do it do it do it do it do it.”  _Put me out of my fucking misery here.  I won’t mind so much if_ you _do it_.  Harleen was crying now.  In a quiet way that somehow disturbed him more than any noisy sobbing ever could.

“My heart scares you and a gun doesn’t?”  She accused.  _Your heart?  No, sweetheart._ My-

“DO IT!”  He screamed before he could finish the thought.  Her hand relaxed, her finger slipped down the trigger.  Joker snatched the gun from her and pointed it at his own head with a laugh.  Another tear dripped down her cheek.  “God.  If you weren’t so crazy I’d think you were insane.”  _Me or her?_   “Go.  Away.”  He thought she’d leave.  This would be the end of it.  But she didn’t move.

“No.”  She answered.  Joker gritted his teeth.  “I love you.  So you can give in to me or you can kill me because as long as I live I won’t ever stop loving you.”  The muscle in Joker’s jaw twitched and he found his hand swinging through the air and landed with a solid smack on her right cheek.  It was a blow a lot rougher than he had intended as she dropped to the cold, slick pavement.

“This is what you’d be in for if you stayed with me.  _This_ is what I know as love.”  Harleen held her fingers to her cheek.  Both were red from the cold.  She got to her feet.

“Give in to me or kill me.”  She repeated.  Joker felt the gun heavy in his hand.  She wanted him to open up, but she couldn’t understand what he was or what he’d been through.  She hadn’t fallen into that vat.  She….

“There’s one more trial, Harls.  If you pass, I concede.  If you fail, well, you’ll be dead.  Either way, you get your wish.”  He stowed his gun in his holster and touched her cheek tenderly with the tips of his fingers.  A bruise was slowly forming where he’d struck her.

“What is it?”  Joker was halfway into the car.

“Get in and find out.”  He ordered.

* * *

 

“Oh my god!  The seats are perfect!  They got lumbar support?  Of course they do!  And check out this stereo!  State of the art!  I betcha pick up a million channels on this puppy!”  Harleen spun around in her seat and looked out the back window.

“Would you settle down?”  Joker growled.  Harleen turned back around and toyed with the buttons on the dashboard.  “Knock it off.”

“Hey, I might die tonight and this might be the only time I’ll ever get to be in a Lamborghini or any car worth more than a hundred grand for that matter.”  She hit a button and let out a slight gasp.  “Oh my god!  Your seats have Magic Fingers?”  Joker snorted out a laugh while Harleen leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes in bliss.  Joker could have made the trip last a few minutes longer.  Given her a few more moments of euphoric happiness.  But he wanted this over with.

He pulled into the dirt lot at the back of Ace Chemicals.  Security never was very tight at the factory so it was child’s play to get in.  He led Harleen up three flights of stairs until they reached the overlook.  He brought Harleen to the edge and pointed down.

“You wanted me to open up, right?”  Harleen nodded.  “Well, that’s where I was born.”  Harleen’s brows drew together in confusion.  “That is what made me what I am.  And if you want to be with me.  If you _really_ want to be with me, you need to be what I am.”  Joker watched the realization light up in Harleen’s eyes.

She stared down into the vat of swirling liquid.  She lost herself in the spinning pool of creamy yellow and Joker lost himself watching her.  He pulled himself back to reality.  Reminded himself why they were there.  He reached out and ran the back of his hand down her arm gently.  She looked away from the vat and met his gaze.

“Question,” he started.  “Would you die for me?”  _As though she has a choice._

“Yes.”  She answered without hesitation.  _Death is easiest on the dying.  It is only difficult for the living._

“That’s too easy.”  He let his eyes wander up the steel beam and away from Harleen for just a second.  “Would you….”  He stopped himself.  For some reason, her answers had started to mean something to him.  “Would you live for me?”  He blurted out.  He snapped his mouth shut and forced himself to swallow.  Harleen stared at him with her mouth agape.  “Hmm?”  He urged her answer, his fingers whispering over her body.

“Yes?”  _She thinks it’s a trap.  A trick question_. 

“Careful.”  Joker warned holding a finger to her face.  “Do not say this oath thoughtlessly.”  He gripped her jaw lightly in his hands so that his tattoo made her appear to be laughing.  “Desire becomes surrender, surrender becomes…power.”  _Or weakness._   If she left now, the odds were high that Joker would simply let her go.  There was also the chance that he tossed her into the vat himself.  No matter what she chose, her chances of living through the night were slim to none.  “Do you want this?”  He uttered.  Harleen steeled herself.

“I do.”  She answered firmly.  _No manners, doc?  What has become of our relationship?_

“Say it.”  Joker urged.  “Say it.”  Harleen’s confusion returned.  “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty-”

“Please?”  Harleen finished.  Joker smiled and clenched his fists on either side of her head.

“God, you’re so… _good_.”  He stepped back and gestured toward the edge.  Harleen stepped forward and looked down.  She turned slowly and looked at him.  Her eyes eerily calm.  A soft smile played at her lips.

Joker held out his arms and she did the same before taking a half step backwards and falling into the vat.  He heard the splash and looked over the edge.  She wasn’t blubbering or fighting to get to the top.  The spinning liquid calmed down immediately.  Joker sighed.  _Good riddance_.

He was walking away when the tightness in his chest became unbearable.  His breath became short and errant. _What is this?_ He turned around and flung his suit jacket away before diving off the ledge without further hesitation.

The chemicals didn’t burn his skin as they had the first time.  There was barely a tingle.  His hands found Harleen and he pulled them both to the surface.  He held her in his arms and waited for her to smile at him and say, ‘Gotcha!’  When she didn’t, he realized she wasn’t breathing.  He bent his head and forced air into her lungs.  He pulled back and looked down at her as she gasped for air.  Her eyes flew open and landed on his with a slow smile creeping across her face.  He bent his head again and sealed his lips to hers.

_I love her._

It was an insane realization.  He wasn’t built for love and yet here he was.  Holding this woman in his arms.  He broke their kiss and threw his head back to laugh.  He had started this as a way to manipulate her and wound up manipulating himself.

* * *

 

They were inseparable after that.  Ride or die for one another and the only one to ever come between them was the Bat who was often foiled by one or both himself.  Harleen became everything he needed.  She was his best henchwoman.  His right hand gal.  The lucky charm he never knew he needed.

Of course she grated his nerves to no end.  She wasn’t the same Harleen Quinzel that went into the vat.  She was Harley Quinn.  Insatiable sex goddess.  The grand master of torture.  The chain around his heart. 

Harley did everything Joker could think to ask with little argument and even less hesitation.  The only thing she ever wanted in return was the only thing she never had to ask for.  His fidelity.  There would be no one else.  That wouldn’t mean to say he wouldn’t try.

There would be nights when she was especially whiny and annoying when Joker was at is least amicable.  Blow out nights that would end up with one or both of them bruised and bloody beyond recognition.  And on the other end, there were quiet nights with just the two of them.  Nights so good it made the bad things disappear.  It made everything disappear.

Joker had fallen so hard and so deeply that it wasn’t until the rug was pulled out from under him that he realized the extent of his devotion.  Seven words spoken by his most loyal and trusted crony. 

“She’s not at Arkham.”

“Well, where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

That conversation.  Those words had been ringing in Joker’s head for months.  He polished off his bottle and dropped it off the ledge.  He watched it fall and imagined that night.  The beginning of the end.

“I was never supposed to miss you, Looney Tunes.  You were never s’posed to be important to me.  And you clawed your way tooth and nail into my heart and soul.  So why’dja disappear?  Why do I care?  Why do I keep coming back here to this place where we fell?  Where _I_ fell in love with you?”  Joker’s question echoed in the empty warehouse.

The sun was beginning to rise.  Beams of light slipped into the dirty warehouse windows and landed on Joker’s haggard face.  He rolled away from the edge and pulled himself to his feet.  As he stumbled to the stairs he looked over his shoulder at the ledge.

“I’m not stopping ‘til I bring you home where you belong, baby.”


End file.
